CNN
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Donald Trump returned to North Carolina on Saturday for a campaign rally, as the former president grappled with turmoil in a key battleground state in which he played a key role.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson — whom President Trump has repeatedly likened to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. — refused to withdraw from the race by a Thursday deadline, ignoring calls from the NAACP, North Carolina newspaper editorial boards and Republican lawmakers.
The pressure came after CNN detailed Robinson’s history of inflammatory comments on pornography message boards, where he has called himself a “black Nazi,” voiced support for the restoration of slavery and made a series of sexually explicit comments.
The Trump campaign did not invite Robinson to the former president’s rally in Wilmington on Saturday, and Trump did not mention the lieutenant governor at all in his speech.
On Friday, Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump’s Democratic rival, launched a new TV ad linking the president to Robinson, marking the first time the Harris campaign has used an ad linking the former president to a lesser candidate.
The ad makes no mention of Robinson’s offensive comments on the pornography message board but is peppered with Trump’s past praise for Robinson and anti-abortion comments from Republican gubernatorial candidates, including Robinson, who has said he supports a statewide abortion ban with no exceptions.
The video begins with Trump calling Robinson an “incredible lieutenant governor” and calling him “better than Martin Luther King Jr.” It also shows Robinson saying, “For me, there is no compromise on abortion,” and “I can pass a bill that says, ‘In North Carolina, you can’t have an abortion for any reason.'”
The effort to link Robinson, who is polling well behind Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein in the gubernatorial race, to Trump comes as the Harris campaign is charting a path to a potential 270 electoral votes that includes four Sun Belt states: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina.
Trump beat Joe Biden in North Carolina by one point in 2020, but polls project a close race between Harris and Trump this year, and without the state’s 16 electoral votes the former president’s path back to the White House will be much tougher.
See Trump’s past comments about Republican Mark Robinson
Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, Trump’s running mate, said Saturday that the Robinson scandal “will play out in the court of public opinion,” making the most direct comments yet from the Trump campaign on the matter.
“It’s not that I don’t believe him. I don’t,” Vance told NBC 10 Philadelphia when asked whether he believes Robinson’s claims that the porn message board comments were not made by him. “I just think these things can be contested in the court of public opinion. He’ll make the claims he wants to make. I have no doubt the press and other media will be investigating these comments further.”
Noting that Robinson had been duly elected in North Carolina, Vance said, “Fundamentally, I think it’s up to Mark Robinson and the people of North Carolina to decide whether or not they want him to be governor. That’s what we’re going to focus on.”
Following KFile’s report on Thursday, Trump campaign spokesperson Caroline Leavitt said in a statement to CNN, “President Trump’s campaign is focused on winning the White House and saving our country, and North Carolina is a critical part of that plan. We are confident that President Trump will win North Carolina again when voters compare the Trump Administration’s record of a strong economy, low inflation, secure borders and safe cities with the failures of a Biden-Harris Administration. We will not take our eyes off this goal.”
Before Saturday, Robinson had attended most or all of Trump’s recent events in North Carolina. Last month, the lieutenant governor spoke at Trump’s economic rally in Asheville, and the former president invited Robinson up on stage in Asheboro.
At a campaign rally in Greensboro in March, Trump described Robinson as “Martin Luther King on steroids” after hearing him speak on a plane.
“I said, ‘I think you’re better than Martin Luther King. I think you’re twice Martin Luther King,'” Trump said at the time.
Robinson has long been a target of political criticism, with a history of inflammatory comments about the civil rights movement, school shooting victims and the Holocaust.
But Trump ignored that history and endorsed Robinson in March. Robinson could join a long list of candidates whom Trump has praised and endorsed, including Robinson, who won the Republican nomination despite red flags but lost in the general election. That list includes 2022 Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kali Lake, 2022 Georgia Senate candidate Herschel Walker and 2022 Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano.
“I have a bad habit,” Trump said at a rally in Georgia last month. “I only like people who like me.”
Some Republicans seem to acknowledge that Robinson’s revelations could effectively destroy any hopes of the GOP winning the North Carolina gubernatorial election.
And many in the party quickly distanced themselves from Robinson. A planned fundraiser for Robinson with Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, chairman of the Republican Governors Association, was canceled, according to a source familiar with the matter.
But the question is whether Robinson’s poor performance will hinder the party’s other candidates in North Carolina, including Trump.
The state’s Republican Sen. Thom Tillis appeared to acknowledge the political realities of the race, saying on social media that Thursday was a “tough day” and that Republicans “must stay focused on the races we can win,” pointing to the presidential race and state legislative and judicial races.
“If Harris wins North Carolina, she will win the White House. We can’t allow that to happen,” Tillis said.
On Friday, the senator called on Robinson to take responsibility for his actions “if the reports are true.”
“If the reports about Mark Robinson are a complete media fabrication, he needs to take immediate legal action. If the reports are true, he owes it to President Trump and all Republicans to take responsibility for his actions and put the future of North Carolina and our party above himself,” Tillis said on social media.
On his radio show Friday, conservative commentator Erick Erickson compared Robinson to Walker, Lake and other defeated candidates endorsed by Trump.
“Every time we outsource vetting of candidates to Donald Trump, it fails,” Erickson said. “It forces Donald Trump to spend money in states that he should have locked down, and that’s the problem.”
This story has been updated with additional information.
CNN’s Alaina Turine, Terrence Burridge, Aaron Perish, Kit Maher and Kate Sullivan contributed to this report.