Mark Robinson sees NC campaign staff quit in droves after damning CNN report

Embattled North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson is reportedly down to just a single-digit number of paid campaign staffers after the bulk of his team abandoned his bid for the governor’s office in the wake of a damaging CNN investigation.

Robinson was the focus of an investigation by the network’s KFile unit on Thursday. A report published by CNN revealed an extensive history of comments made on a porn site called “Nude Africa” under an email address and username both known to be linked to him.

The comments, which touched on a wide range of topics, were outrageous and shocking — in one, he apparently referred to himself as a “Black Nazi.”

Though Robinson posted a video message on Thursday denying making the comments, he has faced calls from his fellow Republicans to prove that CNN defamed him with false information or drop out of the race.

And over the weekend, his problems multiplied. A statement from the Robinson campaign Sunday afternoon indicated that his entire senior staff had resigned.

WUNC further reported that the resignations were much deeper than the statement admitted. According to the news outlet, just three paid staffers remain employed by the Robinson campaign as of Sunday evening.

Robinson has denied that he would drop out of the race and accused Democrats of manufacturing the allegations.

But conservative operatives tuned into the race reacted to the news not with surprise but with resignation this past week as many seemed to indicate that the lion’s share of the accusations had been circulating in private for months.

He “has long been toast,” Doug Heye, a longtime Republican operative from North Carolina, told The Independent on Thursday via text message. He noted how the Republican