Mark Robinson, the Donald Trump-endorsed candidate for North Carolina governor whose purported rants about being a "Black NAZI" on a pornography forum were recently unearthed by CNN, is reportedly not losing support among many North Carolina evangelical Christians.
As Religion News Service reports, Tar Heel evangelicals are sticking by Robinson despite leaving declarations of racism and graphic descriptions of purported sexual encounters with his wife's sister on a pornographic website last decade.
Although they are publicly keeping a distance between themselves and the controversial GOP candidate, they are nonetheless expressing confidence that he will govern as a right-wing Christian should he win this fall's election.
“I do not know what’s true and what’s not true,” said Dwight Frazier, a Christian who attended the recent American Renewal Project luncheon in Henderson, North Carolina. “Everybody has something that’s wrong in their past and does some things they wouldn’t be proud of. I think he loves the Lord and I think he’s trying to do the right thing. He’s still a good man, in my opinion.”
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David Lane, the founder and leader of the American Renewal Project, expressed a similar sentiment and emphasized to Religion News Service that Robinson is a "brilliant" pick for North Carolina governor.
“I don’t know what’s truth and untruth in terms of the allegations against him, but I don’t regret all that we did,” said Lane. “He was fabulous. It’s just that, from a biblical standpoint, Old and New Testament, man is born in sin.”
Whether Robinson turns out to be a "brilliant" pick from an electoral perspective is highly questionable, however.
Recent polls of the race show that the embattled MAGA candidate is trailing Democrat Josh Stein significantly, with Stein up by double digits in some polls.