Republican North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson‘s chances of defeating Democrat Josh Stein in the state’s gubernatorial election appear to be slim, according to new polling results.
Stein, North Carolina’s attorney general, was supported by 49.3 percent of likely North Carolina voters in a poll released by Carolina Journal on Thursday, while Robinson was backed by only 35.8 percent. The 13.5 percentage point deficit was a major reversal for Robinson, who was leading Stein in the same poll by 5 points in May.
The Carolina Journal survey was not the worst recent poll result for Robinson. A Morning Consult survey from this week showed the Republican trailing the Democrat by 22 points. The poll of likely North Carolina voters found that 54 percent supported Stein, while just 32 percent supported Robinson.
Newsweek reached out for comment to the Robinson and Stein campaigns via email on Thursday evening.
ALLISON JOYCE/AFP; Grant Baldwin
Support for Robinson collapsed following a CNN report that last month uncovered a series of posts he purportedly made to a porn website. The posts included Robinson allegedly calling himself a “Black Nazi,” praising Adolf Hitler’s Nazi manifesto Mein Kampf and fondly recalling “peeping” on women in bathrooms.
Only one publicly-released poll conducted since the scandal erupted has shown anything other than a double-digit lead for Stein—a survey from The Telegraph/Redfield & Wilton Strategies that showed Robinson down by 7 points earlier this week.
Robinson has refused calls to drop out of the gubernatorial race and continues to deny making any of the posts, despite CNN extensively documenting evidence that appears to link him to posts made under the username “minisoldr” more than a decade ago on the “Nude Africa” website.
The lieutenant governor, who has described CNN’s reporting as “tabloid trash,” sued the network for defamation earlier this week. The lawsuit complains that CNN published the allegations “despite known or recklessly disregarding” that information linking Robinson to the posts was “previously compromised by multiple data breaches.”
Robinson has also sued the singer of a North Carolina punk band who alleged prior to the CNN report that the then-future lieutenant governor purchased pornography at a store the singer worked at in the 1990s and early 2000s.
While Stein was already leading in polls for months before the CNN report was published, the emergence of the scandal has expanded his lead significantly. It has also prompted concerns about negatively impacting the chances of other Republicans running for office in North Carolina this year.
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, enthusiastically endorsed Robinson and previously praised him as “Martin Luther King on steroids.” However, Robinson has been conspicuously absent from Trump campaign events in North Carolina since the scandal broke.