Mark Robinson Hosts Fayetteville Meetup Amid Firestorm

North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson is expected to attend a meeting in Fayetteville Saturday night in what appears to be his first public appearance following a report accusing him of making sexually explicit and racially charged comments online.

Robinson will speak at a campaign event at Fayetteville Motor Speedway at 6 p.m., according to a post on the venue’s Facebook page. The event is part of the Carlton Lamm “Big C” Memorial Race. Tickets will be sold at the door.

Robinson, the Republican candidate in the gubernatorial race against Josh Stein, trails Stein by 14 percentage points in a recent WRAL News poll.

Robinson finds himself embroiled in controversy again just 45 days before the election. The 56-year-old was linked to a series of inflammatory comments on the porn site Nude Africa’s forum more than a decade ago, in which he called himself a “black Nazi” and expressed support for the restoration of slavery, CNN reports.

Some Republicans have called on Robinson to do more to prove the comments were not his, or risk hurting former President Donald Trump’s efforts to return to the White House. Trump is scheduled to speak Saturday afternoon in Wilmington. Robinson, whom Trump has endorsed in the past, will not attend the rally. Trump has backed Robinson, calling him “better” than Martin Luther King Jr. in December.