While it was hard to believe that Mark Robinson would sink any lower, the Republican candidate for governor of North Carolina found a way.

A CNN report this afternoon said Robinson has described himself as “a black Nazi” and said in 2012, “I’d take Hitler over all that shit that’s in Washington now!” Robinson has also posted about his enjoyment of transgender porn, recounted intrusive voyeurism of women showering as a teenager and criticized Martin Luther King Jr., writing, “Slavery isn’t bad. Some people need to be slaves. I wish they’d bring it back. I’d definitely buy some.”

The comments were posted on the message board of a porn site called Nude Africa. Robinson denies making them and says he will not quit the race.

A sign of how problematic Robinson’s candidacy for governor already is was the sickening sense of anticipation that swept through North Carolina political circles and around the world all day long as he awaited the scoop. Carolina Diarya conservative magazine, reported earlier in the day that CNN was preparing a damaging story and that pressure was mounting on Robinson to withdraw.

The same question kept coming up as I tried to figure out what the CNN story could be: How much worse can it be than what we already know? The answer is worse, but not categorically worse. Robinson has long made shockingly racist and anti-Semitic remarks. He has even made other disparaging remarks about King before, calling him an “ersatz pastor.” If the North Carolina GOP was going to draw the line at this kind of behavior, it should have done so years ago.

David A. Graham: Mark Robinson Tests the Limits of GOP Extremism

Now, according to the Carolina Journal, some Republicans in North Carolina have been secretly pressuring Robinson to withdraw. This is not because they are shocked by the new information, but because they can read the polls. Robinson is significantly behind state Attorney General Josh Stein, the Democratic candidate. His record is so bad that the GOP is worried he could be a liability for both Donald Trump, for whom North Carolina is a key state, and Republicans on the ticket. Today is the last day Robinson can withdraw. Even if he did, his name would still be on the ballots, which have already been printed.

Robinson called the story a “high-tech lynching” and insisted the messages were not like him. One problem is that they sound extremely similar to what he has said elsewhere. Robinson said in June that “Some people need to be killed!” He has previously denied the Holocaust and called the comic book hero Black Panther a ploy by Jews “to drain the shekels out of your pockets of Schvartze.” He has called Michelle Obama a man and Beyonce’s music satanic.

Robinson has a long history of offensive Facebook comments, and reporters have unearthed more damaging information during the campaign. I reported last month that despite making veterans issues central to his campaign, Robinson has skipped every meeting of the state’s Military Affairs Commission, one of his few legal duties as lieutenant governor. His wife’s nonprofit child care organization has been the subject of both state and federal investigations into its use of funds.

It’s also not unbelievable that Robinson would have hung out on a porn site. Earlier this month, the North Carolina publication reported The Meeting reported on Robinson’s frequent visits to pornography shops in the 1990s and 2000s. Robinson denied visiting the stores, but employees and other customers said he was there often, and the owner of one provided a photo of himself with Robinson.

Perhaps most embarrassing for Robinson’s campaign is how these old comments run counter to his campaign message of deeply religious social conservatism. It’s happened before during this campaign. Robinson is a hardliner on abortion, having said he wants to ban it entirely, even though his wife had an abortion early in their marriage. In recently revealed comments from 2022, he said the way to empower women was to “get this under control,” waving his hands over his groin. He has attempted to moderate his pro-abortion stance on the trial but continues to privately support an outright ban.

Another key component of the campaign is the targeting of transgender people. He warned them: “If you’re a man on a Friday night and all of a sudden you feel like a woman on a Saturday and you want to go to the ladies’ room at the mall, you’re going to be arrested or whatever we have to do to you.”

On Nude Africa, however, Robinson had a different opinion. Not only did he brag about illegally peeping on women in toilets, he also wrote about consuming transgender porn. “I love watching tranny on girl porn! It’s f*cking hot! It gets the man out while the man stays in!” Robinson wrote. “And yes, I’m a ‘pervert’ too!”

Politico also reported today that Robinson’s email address was used on Ashley Madison, a site where people can connect with each other for extramarital sex.

The hypocrisy, like the bigotry, is staggering, but it is not new. Republicans now seem stuck with Robinson in the governor’s race. They can’t say they weren’t warned.