Mark Robinson’s Campaign Is Collapsing as His Staffers Ditch Him

In the wake of his porn website scandal, North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson’s campaign is quickly falling apart.

Almost all of his staff members resigned Sunday night, including four senior staffers: his campaign manager Chris Rodriguez, finance director Heather Whillier, deputy campaign manager Jason Rizk, and campaign consultant Conrad Pogorzelski III, according to a statement from the campaign.

Robinson has ignored calls from his fellow Republicans to drop out of the race, and the deadline for withdrawing was Thursday. While Donald Trump is still endorsing him, neither the former president nor his running mate, J.D. Vance, will be appearing at any future rallies with Robinson.

In a statement, Robinson, who is also North Carolina’s lieutenant governor, tried to downplay the staff departures.

“I appreciate the efforts of these team members who have made the difficult choice to step away from the campaign, and I wish them well in their future endeavors,” Robinson said. “I look forward to announcing new staff roles in the coming days.”

But who is going to work for Robinson’s staff after hearing about his latest scandal? On Thursday, CNN revealed that he commented on a pornography website’s message board about wanting to own slaves, enjoying transgender porn, and peeping in women’s locker rooms. He even called himself a “Black Nazi” in a comment on the Nude Africa website.

It seems to be the last straw for many Republicans, as Robinson’s previous scandals, while heinous in their own light, didn’t prompt so many calls for him to drop out of the race. Previously, he has minimized the horrors of the Holocaust, said the movie Black Panther was a plot by a “satanic marxist” to pull “shekels” out of Black audiences, likened women getting abortions to murderers, and called gay people “filth” and “maggots.”

Perhaps now Republicans are not only worried about losing the North Carolina governorship, but also the state’s electoral votes in the presidential election. The latest polls show Trump and Kamala Harris nearly deadlocked in a state that voted for the Republican in 2020. With Robinson staying in the race, Democrats might have a shot at a state that was once thought out of reach.

This story has been updated.

With about a month and a half before November’s elections, a sizable fundraising gap is opening up between the two parties, as they vie to claim congressional majorities. The Democratic Party is relatively flush, raking in money for their congressional candidates. Their totals ended up dwarfing the Republicans’ effort last month.

In August, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee raised $22.3 million, eclipsing the National Republican Congressional Committee’s total of $9.7 million. The NRCC has a total of $70.75 million of cash on hand, more than $16 million less than the DCCC.  

It’s more bad news for the GOP, which also had poor fundraising to report for July, when it spent more money than it took in. The party has been reeling ever since Kamala Harris entered the presidential race in July and set fundraising records. Earlier this month, leading Republicans in Congress panicked about a huge money gap between them and the Democrats, and were begging donors to send more cash their way. 

Their pleas don’t appear to have helped much, if at all. The party lost its key fundraiser when former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted last year, leaving his replacement, Mike Johnson, with big shoes to fill. The party’s shortfall is particularly perilous to the sixteen House Republicans who represent districts that Joe Biden won in 2020. All of their races are considered to be close contests, and any gap in funding gives Democrats an extra advantage.  

The Republicans in these vulnerable swing district can’t expect much, if any help from Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, either. His campaign and associated political groups have been funneling profits to his businesses to the tune of $28 million since he first ran for office in 2015.  

Now that his daughter-in-law Lara Trump is a co-chair of the Republican National Committee, Trump also wields considerable influence, if not outright control, over the party’s funds. Considering how high his personal debts and legal expenses are, it’s not hard to imagine the former president and convicted felon diverting the party’s cashflow to his own needful coffers. It seems that the GOP will have to rely on whatever its billionaire friends can pony up.   

Donald Trump has chosen to stand by his man, even though that man allegedly self-described as a “Black Nazi!” in a comment on a porn-site message board.

North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, who is currently running for governor, was the subject of a bombshell report Thursday that revealed the Trump ally had allegedly written on a pornography website’s message board about wanting to own slaves, peeping in women’s locker rooms, and enjoying transgender porn.

Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told NBC News Friday morning that rumors that Trump was planning to pull his endorsement of Robinson were “false.”

“President Trump’s campaign is focused on winning the White House and saving the country,” said Leavitt, without addressing the allegations about Robinson at all.

“North Carolina is a vital part of that plan. We are confident that as voters compare the Trump record of a strong economy, low inflation, a secure border, and safe streets, with the failure of Biden-Harris, then President Trump will win the Tarheel State once again.”

Some within the Trump campaign have been pushing for the former president to withdraw his endorsement. Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley and Republican lawmakers in North Carolina planned to speak with Trump privately about dropping Robinson, one person familiar with the conversations told NBC. But it seems unlikely that the Republican presidential nominee will go back on his word—as unreliable as it is—for fear of alienating his fans.

“The problem with it is, while he may feel like that might be a smart move—and I don’t know that he does—there’s no way in hell he’s going to risk the base, which will go furious,” one former senior Trump official told NBC.

Trump Media & Technology Group stock dropped to its lowest price yet Friday, the first day Donald Trump is allowed to sell his shares in the social media venture. 

Shares dropped more than 7 percent to $13.68 per share, putting the value of the company at $2.74 billion. It’s a far cry from when the stock price peaked at nearly $80 per share in March after its initial public offering.

Trump owns 115 million shares of TMTG, about 57 percent of the company, and the stock seems to fluctuate based on public sentiment toward the former president and convicted felon. His poor debate performance against Kamala Harris last week caused a steep drop in the stock price, and the stock also took a hit last month when Trump posted on X (formerly Twitter) after a long hiatus.  

Until Friday, the Republican presidential nominee wasn’t allowed to sell any of his shares unless he had permission from the company’s board of directors. Last week, he promised that he wouldn’t immediately sell his shares, giving the stock a slight bump. But that was quickly erased after the debate and with Friday’s arrival. 

Now what was once a sure cash cow for Trump has lost most of its value, and the former president must be tempted to squeeze whatever profit he can out of it. He has unpaid bills, legal fees, and a massive fraud judgment against him in New York, where the state might seize his assets. He has resorted to absurd moneymaking schemes such as selling NFT trading cards, his own branded Bibles, his own cryptocurrency scam, and assassination-themed sneakers. 

The moment he decides to sell his stock, though, investors’ confidence will plummet and the stock will hit the floor, and that might be the end of Truth Social. The question is what Trump loves more: a quick and easy profit, or his own branded social network. 

Republican Representative James Comer attacked Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s family Friday, while defending his blatantly political investigation into the Democratic vice presidential nominee.

During an appearance on Fox Business’s Mornings With Maria, Comer tried to defend the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into Walz, which was announced last month, alleging that the Democratic governor has a “long-standing cozy relationship with China.”

“Yeah, that’s a scary family there,” Comer said of Walz’s family. “It looks like the type of family that’s been indoctrinated.”

As Comer spoke, host Maria Bartiromo looked horrified, and the producers cut away from her.

“They believe that there is a better way to do business,” Comer said. “Some of the things that the Walzes have said about China, their affection for China. That’s very concerning for me because we don’t want to set our business model like China.”

It’s clear, however, that Comer’s investigation is a political ploy to help out Donald Trump. The same week Comer announced his probe into Walz’s ties with China, the House Oversight Committee chair also announced that he would investigate Kamala Harris’s work on the southern border. He previously attempted a similar gambit by spearheading an investigation into the Biden family—which crumbled, having not produced any evidence of the president’s, or his family’s, supposed wrongdoings.

Representative Maxwell Frost, a Democrat from Florida, eviscerated Comer Thursday for going after Walz, as well as his other obvious steps to help Trump.

Frost accused Comer of violating House rules to hold a blatantly political hearing on the alleged failures of the Biden-Harris administration. “How can we allow this hearing to continue, when we are in direct violation of the House rules?” Frost asked.

“This committee functions as an extension of the Trump campaign,” Frost said. “First, we went after President Biden with a nonsense impeachment hearing. Then we went after his son. Now we’re going after the vice president because she’s the nominee. And my question is, Mr. Chairman, are we going after Tim Walz next, next week?

“I hear from my staff that you’re planning a hearing on Governor Tim Walz, even though he’s been governor for five years and his name hasn’t been uttered in this room, or in this committee, until something happened recently—oh yes, he became the vice presidential nominee. Is he next?”

During Frost’s takedown, Representative Jamie Raskin could be seen grinning.

Comer was completely unable to defend his blatant politicking. “His son is going to jail,” Comer said, speaking about Hunter Biden. Frost clarified he was asking about Walz, and Comer sighed, “Ohhh, I’ll have to check.”

Frost said anyone involved in the “blatant use of official resources for a political campaign” should be “ashamed of themselves.”

Clearly, Comer is shameless, and so bent on helping Trump he’ll say anything, no matter how egregious.

Donald Trump’s allies on the Georgia State Election Board voted 3–2 Friday to require the state’s counties to count all election ballots by hand, which would considerably delay the results and cast doubt on the process.

The move comes thanks to the pro-Trump majority on the board, which has taken several steps in the hopes of helping the former president win the state in November. The three board members have sought to make it easier for county election officials to reject election results, and have had an ethics complaint lodged against them for trying to make significant changes to the rules governing Georgia’s elections.

The Georgia Attorney General’s Office warned Thursday that the rule changes would likely be considered illegal or invalid under state law and break ballot chain of custody.

The new rule, one of 11 that the board planned to vote on Friday, would require ballots to be counted by hand the night of the election or by the next day, which many local election officials say would be impossible in most of the state’s counties. In public comments Friday, some officials said it was too late to institute rules that require staff training and funds they don’t have.

“Military ballots have already been issued,” said Irwin County elections supervisor Ethan Compton. “The election has begun. This is not the time to change the rules. That will only lower the integrity of our elections.”

Saira Draper, a Democrat in Georgia’s state legislature and an election lawyer, saw the rule change as a blatant effort to cause chaos on Election Day.

“It makes me question whether members of this board are operating in good faith,” Draper said. “Putting 11, maybe 12 new rules into play days before Election Day is a grift. We are setting up our counties to fail. Why do we know they are going to fail? Because they are telling you that.”

A Georgia judge has already thrown out one right-wing attempt to mess with certification procedures in the state, and it seems likely that this new rule will be challenged in court too. But it won’t stop Trump’s allies in the state, who are strategizing behind the scenes to help the former president and convicted felon. If they succeed, they could end up nullifying a Democratic victory in the state.

If Republicans get their way in Pennsylvania, voters won’t be able to correct technical problems with their ballots.

The Republican National Committee and the Pennsylvania Republican Party filed a lawsuit in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court Wednesday against the state’s 67 county election boards and Secretary of State Al Schmidt, a Republican. The lawsuit not only would stop ballot correction but would also prevent voters from being able to cast a provisional ballot if their mail ballot is rejected for technical reasons.

Republicans claim that state law bars election officials from telling voters about such issues and allowing their ballots to be fixed and counted. In many other states, such corrections are allowed, such as when a date or signature is missing on a ballot or envelope, or when signatures don’t match. A restriction on provisional ballots could hurt voters who run into problems after showing up at their polling place, such as their name not appearing on the registration rolls.

Schmidt’s office responded to the lawsuit, saying they support “allowing voters to rectify technical deficiencies so their vote is counted.”

“We will continue to fight for every eligible citizen’s right to vote and have their voice heard,” a spokesperson said.

Donald Trump has railed against mail-in balloting, attacking the U.S. Postal Service and claiming it’s ridden with fraud, in an attempt to undermine confidence in the voting option, which is more likely to be used by Democrats. Pennsylvania has been a particular target of the former president and convicted felon, as he has claimed without evidence that 20 percent of mail-in ballots in the state are fraudulent.

The USPS may be a major factor during the 2024 election, as service has worsened in many states in the past few years. Many battleground states such as Georgia still have lower than average delivery times, and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump appointee, has been accused of deliberately hurting the postal service to pursue a privatization agenda.

Republicans’ plan to change how electoral votes are distributed in Nebraska could have far-reaching effects to hurt Kamala Harris’s chances at the presidency.

Nebraska splits its five Electoral College votes, granting two of them to the winner of the state’s popular vote, while the other three are given to the winner of the three congressional districts. In the past few months, Republicans in the state have pushed to return to a model where all the votes would be granted to the winner of the whole state.

Earlier this week, South Carolina senator and apparent errand boy for Donald Trump Lindsey Graham traveled to Nebraska to shore up support for this change among state lawmakers.

In ensuring that all of the state’s electoral votes go to one candidate, Republicans are essentially securing the presidential election in Nebraska for Trump, by siphoning away a spare point that Harris would earn from a district with a large metropolitan area.

If Nebraska changes its rules, it’s likely that Maine would seek to do so too, which has the potential to help Harris regain some ground lost in Nebraska.

Maine also splits its four electoral votes, with two appointed based on the winner of the popular vote within each congressional district and then two based on the winner of the state-wide popular vote.

Maine’s Democratic House Majority Leader Maureen Terry issued a statement in April indicating that if Nebraska were to change its Electoral College rules, she would “be compelled to act in order to restore fairness.”

In 2020, Maine delivered one electoral vote to Trump and the other three to Joe Biden. If Maine changed its Electoral College rules and votes similarly to how it did four years ago, all four Electoral College votes would be delivered to Harris, giving her back the one vote she may have lost in Nebraska.

However, there’s one major problem: It may be too late for Maine to change its rules, according to Politico.

In Maine, a bill becomes law 90 days after it’s passed. Only 46 days remain until polls open in November, and only 87 days until electoral votes will be cast.

A bill can be made into law immediately if it receives a two-thirds vote in each chamber. While the Democrats have majorities in both houses, they don’t have the kind of numbers to ensure supermajority support.

We’re 46 days away from November 5, and 87 days from December 16, when electoral votes are set to be cast.

If Nebraska is able to change but Maine is not, it’s possible that Harris will lose out on one electoral vote, which, according to one projection, means that she will need to do more than win the key battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania to have a shot at 270—she’ll need to win at least one other swing state too.

While Harris is polling competitively in North Carolina and Georgia, Nebraska Republicans’ plot to change the state’s Electoral College rules makes these battleground states even more make-or-break for Harris’s campaign.

According to new court filings, Representative Matt Gaetz attended a sex party with a 17-year-old girl.

The court filings contain sealed affidavits from three eyewitness testimonies that the party was held at the Florida home of lobbyist Chris Dorworth, who is also a friend of Gaetz, NOTUS reported Friday. The filings were part of a civil lawsuit brought by Dorworth in 2023. Dorworth ultimately dropped the lawsuit, but Dorworth’s attorneys filed the documents in federal court to try and recoup legal fees.

One of the witnesses said in a sworn affidavit that the teenager, who was a junior in high school at the time, was naked; people attending the party engaged in “sexual activities”; and partygoers consumed alcohol, cocaine, ecstasy, and marijuana. Testimony from the witness and two other women, one of whom was Gaetz’s then girlfriend, all placed the congressman at the party. A digital forensic examiner also confirmed activity from Gaetz’s cell phone at Dorworth’s house.

This is the first time that “sworn testimony has been referenced in public court filings alleging that the congressman attended one of the long-rumored parties tied to an alleged underage sex scandal,” according to NOTUS. Previous details regarding Gaetz’s involvement, such as reported Venmo transactions of Gaetz allegedly paying his friend Joel Greenberg to arrange sex with young women, have not been made public. Greenberg was convicted of several charges, including fraud and sex trafficking, in 2021, and is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence.

Gaetz is currently facing a House Ethics Committee investigation into his alleged activities, and a woman has already come forward alleging that he paid her for sex. A previous Justice Department investigation resulted in Gaetz escaping federal charges, although Greenberg was convicted after a plea deal.

North Carolina Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson’s latest campaign scandal may seriously scare Donald Trump, but not because of what Robinson allegedly did. It’s because the former president is already struggling to defend the Southern state from Kamala Harris.

In an exclusive interview with MeidasTouch, Democratic analyst Simon Rosenberg offered his read of the situation unfolding in the Tar Heel State.

“In 2022, the Republicans flooded the battleground states with polling that was three to four points more Republican than the independent polls, and they pushed the averages, you know, into making the election look much more Republican,” Rosenberg said, noting that these inflated numbers were at the “core of the false red wave.”

Rosenberg said that in the last week, the same pollsters had become focused on the Tar Heel State.

“In the last week, we’ve seen five polls drop in North Carolina,” Rosenberg said. “They’re clearly worried about North Carolina. Something’s happening there. Because the five independent polls that we’ve had in the last two weeks have Harris either tied or ahead in North Carolina, in every one of the polls. In the five Republican polls, Trump is ahead.”

TrendingPolitics and the Trafalgar Group, two Republican-funded polling groups, released polls this week that found Trump in the lead by two points in North Carolina. A survey by American Greatness, a conservative news organization, found that Trump had a three-point lead there.

Meanwhile, a Morning Consult poll found Harris up by two points in North Carolina, and an Emerson College poll found that Harris was polling even with Trump.

“If you read it backwards, it means they’re very worried about what’s happening there,” Rosenberg said, noting that North Carolina was one of the “bright spots” for Democrats.

All of this Republican scrambling is thrown into sharp relief by Thursday’s bombshell report revealing that Robinson, a Trump ally, had allegedly written on a pornography website’s message board about wanting to own slaves, peeping in women’s locker rooms, and enjoying transgender porn.

North Carolina is a particularly crucial battleground state in the upcoming election. If Harris is unable to win Pennsylvania, then she must secure both North Carolina and Georgia for a chance at 270 electoral college votes.

Last week, the Republican National Committee and North Carolina’s Republican Party sued the state’s Board of Elections to limit acceptable forms of voter identification. In North Carolina, in-person early voting begins October 17.