Democrats hope that the scandal enveloping Mark Robinson, the GOP pick for governor in North Carolina, could not only derail Robinson’s own campaign but also hurt Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in the critical battleground state.

CNN reported Thursday that Robinson, the lieutenant governor of North Carolina, was a regular commenter on a pornographic website called Nude Africa, where he praised slavery, railed against a Martin Luther King, Jr. tribute, declared “I’m a black NAZI!” and recounted spying on women as they showered. Robinson has denied making those and other graphic sexual comments online, despite extensive links between the Nude Africa user and his public identity.

Although the messages have been removed from the site, a person who had access to the site before the deletion provided The Washington Post with screenshots. The Post reviewed the messages and confirmed their contents.

The potential fallout stretches far beyond the political career of the gubernatorial candidate. Both presidential candidates covet North Carolina’s 16 electoral votes, and the state is critical to Trump’s most plausible paths to victory in the electoral college. Polling already showed Trump neck-and-neck with Vice President Kamala Harris in the state.

Harris is hoping to be the first Democrat seeking national office to win statewide in North Carolina since 2008. Her party highlighted the Trump-Robinson connection on Friday, and some Republicans pushed Robinson to drop out over the CNN report even before it published, fearful the long-struggling candidate’s most recent controversy would metastasize and hurt the whole ticket.

But Robinson defied pressure to leave the race ahead of a Thursday deadline, and absentee ballots with Robinson’s name on them went out Friday morning to military and overseas voters, according to State Board of Elections spokesman Patrick Gannon. The North Carolina GOP rallied behind Robinson Thursday evening with a supportive statement that will test the limits of Republicans’ years-long strategy of dismissing unflattering information as “fake news” — and their voters’ willingness to look past scandal.

Now Trump, who did not comment on Robinson at an event on fighting antisemitism in Washington on Thursday evening, faces awkward new questions about his support for his longtime ally. The former president is set to hold a rally in Wilmington, N.C., on Saturday afternoon. Robinson has previously joined Trump at many events, but now Trump’s team has an incentive to seek distance. Robinson will not attend Trump’s Saturday rally, a person familiar with the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning, told The Post.

Ed Broyhill, RNC Committeeman from North Carolina, dismissed the allegations against Robinson in an interview. He argued the porn website account was not verified as Robinson’s and suggested its comments may have been taken out of context.

“There are other issues that have come up in the past that have been rather embarrassing for Mark, and he’s overcome those and moved on,” Broyhill said. “So I’m holding out — my point is I stand strong. And I have all the faith in the world Mark is going to carry on.”

He predicted the furor would not hurt Trump: “Ninety-five percent of the support for Donald Trump is set in concrete and marble,” he said. “It is not budging.”

Democrats see new opportunity in a state they have spent millions of dollars to flip blue. Trump won North Carolina by just over one percentage point in 2020, his narrowest margin of victory anywhere in the country. And Harris’s replacement of Biden at the top of the ticket has made the race in North Carolina more competitive.

The DNC announced that it was putting up nine billboards that link Robinson and Trump in the state. They show both candidates beaming at the camera, with Trump making a thumbs up gesture. In a quote next to the picture, Trump praises Robinson: “He’s an incredible person.” Five of the billboards will go up in Charlotte, the state’s largest city and a Democratic stronghold.

“Donald Trump and Mark Robinson are two MAGA extremists cut from the same cloth,” DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison said in a statement announcing the advertisements. “ … Make no mistake: Trump has embraced and tied himself to Robinson at every turn.”

The connection between the two candidates was at the center of Republican nail biting on Friday.

“[Robinson] will lose … The question now is, with the drip, drip, drip of scandal, does Robinson’s baggage have other ballot ramifications and open a path for Kamala Harris and the state’s 16 electoral college votes?” conservative commentator Erick Erickson wrote on his blog.

Erickson noted that Democrats pushed Biden out of the 2024 race when it became clear he probably could not win. With Robinson, he predicted, “his supporters will say it’s old or a lie.”

Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina wrote on social media that Thursday “was a tough day” and urged Republicans to “stay focused on the races we can win” — such as Trump’s.

Before the CNN revelations, many in the party acknowledged that Robinson was a flawed candidate and predicted he would lose. He consistently trailed Democratic nominee Josh Stein, the state attorney general, in polls. A Quinnipiac poll conducted in early September showed Stein leading Robinson by double digits, while Harris’s lead over Trump was within the margin of error.

But Republicans also said they saw little evidence that Robinson’s underperformance was crippling Trump, who has enthusiastically praised and endorsed Robinson.

Trump’s campaign responded to the CNN story on Robinson with a statement that did not mention the lieutenant governor. “President Trump’s campaign is focused on winning the White House and saving this country,” Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement, adding: “We are confident that as voters compare the Trump record of a strong economy, low inflation, a secure border, and safe streets, with the failures of Biden-Harris, then President Trump will win the Tarheel State once again.”

The Harris campaign posted a mocking video Thursday that featured pictures of Trump and Robinson together. The video included clips of Trump praising Robinson, saying he is “like Martin Luther King on steroids” in one clip. In another, he compares Robinson to “a fine wine.”

The state’s electoral votes have been tantalizingly out-of-reach for Democrats since Obama narrowly won them in 2008 for the first time in more than 30 years. Obama narrowly lost the Tar Heel state in 2012, and it went for Trump in both 2016 and 2020. Democrats have won some statewide elections in North Carolina — the governor and attorney general, Robinson’s opponent, are both Democrats — but the gerrymandered state legislature remains strongly Republican.

Still, Democrats hope that Harris, the first Black woman and woman of South Asian descent to be vice president, can help rebuild the multicultural coalition that propelled Obama to the White House.

Doug Wilson, a Democratic strategist in North Carolina, said Friday that the latest Robinson allegations have raised his party’s hopes about the state. “But Democrats also know not to spike the ball in the end zone and do a touchdown dance … We just know that North Carolina has been like Lucy and the football for us a lot of cycles. So this is just gonna make us hone in harder and go at it with even more focus, because we see right now that Republicans are exposed.”

Harris has visited North Carolina nine times this year, including back-to-back rallies in Charlotte and Greensboro just after her debate with Trump. Often, Robinson was a focus, a man she declared was “handpicked by Donald Trump” to run for governor and who she said wanted a total ban on abortion, although, like Trump, Robinson has attempted to moderate his opinion on abortion.

In phone banks and chit chats with on-the-fence North Carolina voters, Democrats have been giving North Carolinians a steady diet of Robinson, saying he is Exhibit A for the extremism that will pervade the country if Trump returns to the White House.

As of Friday, Republicans and Democrats have each spent more than $20 million on presidential race advertising in North Carolina, according to the tracking firm AdImpact.

Republican strategists acknowledge that Harris has tightened the race but hope that voters’ concerns about the economy and the border will deliver Trump victory. They note polling that shows Americans favor Trump on those issues and believe that will outweigh voters’ preference for Harris on the topic of abortion.

Trump’s advisers note that if he holds on to North Carolina, he only needs to flip two states he lost in 2020 — Georgia and Pennsylvania — to win in November.