A swing state nightmare: The Republican Senator stuck between Trump and a national disgrace

Embattled gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson was not the only Republican absent at former president Donald Trump’s rally in Wilmington, North Carolina last weekend.

While North Carolina’s junior senator Ted Budd addressed the crowd, its senior senator and longtime power broker Thom Tillis notably did not speak. In the days after CNN’s report that Robinson had allegedly commented on a porno site called Nude Africa calling himself a “black Nazi” and a “perv” who would have owned slaves if he had the chance, the incumbent lieutenant governor has vehemently denied his involvement. He has also hired a lawyer who he says will help to prove the allegations are false.

But Tillis told The Independent that Robinson needs to come forward to substantiate his claims that artificial intelligence was behind the posts.

“What I've said publicly is I think it's on Mr Robinson to demonstrate to us that he has evidence to the contrary,” he told The Independent in a brief interview on Tuesday.

It’s fair to say that there is no love lost between Tillis and Robinson. Back in 2023, Tillis endorsed Bill Graham in the primary for governor rather than Robinson, which led to Robinson calling Tillis “North Carolina’s Mitt Romney”. (That is, of course, more than a little ironic, given that Romney put North Carolina back in the Republican column during his 2012 presidential campaign after Barack Obama won it in 2008.)

Tillis denied that he endorsed Graham out of any animosity toward Robinson.

“The basis for me endorsing Graham and the primary was he has extraordinary experience, business experience,” he said. That blew up in Tillis’s face when Robinson won with overwhelming niumbers. But it doesn’t look like such a bad move now.

“[Democrats]