As North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson faces calls to suspend his campaign for governor, polls show his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Josh Stein, leading the race as November approaches.

Robinson has come under fire after CNN published a report Thursday linking the conservative to comments made on an adult website several years ago. Among the posts Robinson is accused of making on the site “Nude Africa” ​​is one in which he calls himself “a black Nazi.” In another post, made during the Obama administration, Robinson is said to have written, “I would choose Hitler over all the shit in Washington right now!”

Robinson is North Carolina’s first black lieutenant governor and is running with the support of former President Donald Trump. Some Republicans have called on Robinson to suspend his candidacy ahead of the state’s end-of-day deadline Thursday, though he has said he plans to stay in the race.

When asked for comment, Robinson offered the following advice: Newsweek to the lieutenant governor’s video message shared on social media, in which he called CNN’s story “tabloid trash” and denied being behind the comments.

Stein, on the other hand, is running with the endorsement of current North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat and the two-term replacement for Vice President Kamala Harris. Stein has led the race against Cooper for weeks, including in a poll released Thursday by Emerson College and The Hill showing that 48 percent of likely voters support the Democrat.

By comparison, Robison got 40 percent of likely voters, while 10 percent of the 1,000 respondents said they were undecided. The poll has a margin of error of 3 percentage points and was conducted Sept. 15-18.

Earlier this month, a Quinnipiac University poll had Stein leading the race 51 percent to 41 percent, based on responses from 940 voters Sept. 4-8. A Fox News poll conducted Aug. 23-26 gave Stein an even wider lead, showing the Democrat ahead 54 percent to Robinson’s 43 percent among 1,000 registered voters.

Newsweek reached out to Stein’s campaign Thursday evening for further comment.

Robinson has been caught making inflammatory remarks ahead of CNN’s report on Thursday. In a 2019 Facebook post, the GOP candidate said abortion in America was “about killing the child because you weren’t responsible enough to keep your skirt down.” In 2021, before he was elected lieutenant governor in 2022, Robinson referred to “homosexuality” and “transgenderism” as “filth” while speaking at a church.

Cooper told Politico in August that he had withdrawn from being Harris’ running mate because he feared Robinson could build momentum in North Carolina in his absence.

“If I were out of state at a campaign rally, and I was the vice presidential nominee, he could claim he was acting governor,” Cooper said at the time.