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Despite setting several new benchmarks for weird GOP extremism, Mark Robinson has repeatedly vowed to carry on with his scandal-plagued gubernatorial campaign in North Carolina. On Sunday, he again insisted he wouldn’t be dropping out — in a statement announcing that several senior members of his campaign staff had. Robinson’s campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, finance director, and general consultant/senior adviser have all quit. His director of operations and his campaign’s two political directors have also left, according to WUNC, which reports that only three staffers now remain:
A campaign news release said that four top staffers have left the campaign: Conrad Pogorzelski, general consultant and senior advisor who’s worked for Robinson since his initial 2020 lieutenant governor campaign; Chris Rodriguez, campaign manager; Heather Whillier, finance director; and Jason Rizk, deputy campaign manager. But WUNC has confirmed that other staffers have quit as well, leaving Robinson with just three people working on his campaign — two campaign spokesmen and a bodyguard. The list of departures also include longtime director of operations Patrick Riley and political directors John Kontoulas and Jackson Lohrer.
The mass exodus comes just three days after a CNN report revealed that Robinson had once referred to himself as a “Black Nazi” on a porn site message board. (He also expressed an affinity for Hitler, called Mein Kampf a “good read,” said slavery should be reinstated, disparaged Martin Luther King Jr., used antisemitic slurs, and said a whole lot of other things.)
The North Carolina Republican Party has stood by its nominee, and over the weekend, GOP vice-presidential candidate J.D. Vance kind of did to. When asked if he believed Robinson’s claims that he didn’t write the porn site posts, Vance responded, “I don’t not believe him, I don’t believe him — I just think that you have to let these things sometimes play out in the court of public opinion.”
Robinson’s campaign said Sunday it would announce who was being hired to replace the departing staff “in the coming days.” In the meantime, notorious pro-Trump operative and convicted felon Jack Burkman announced on Sunday night that he is Robinson’s new campaign manager — but that hasn’t been confirmed yet:
This post has been updated.
