Breaking: Exclusive: Mark Robinson Refusing to Drop Out of N.C. Gov Race as CNN Bombshell Looms

More than a year after North Carolina GOP officials and operatives began privately warning about damning opposition research on lieutenant governor Mark Robinson, high-level conversations are taking place in North Carolina Republican circles about whether the controversial candidate should drop out of this year's gubernatorial race ahead of what’s expected to be a damning forthcoming story in CNN. As National Review reported earlier Thursday, the CNN story is expected to allege new details about unsavory comments Robinson made on an online messaging board.

As North Carolina Republicans wait with bated breath for the story to drop, the Robinson campaign shared an exclusive video statement with National Review denying the forthcoming accusations in the expected CNN story and reassuring his supporters he is staying in the race no matter what. “You know my words, you know my character, and you know that I have been completely transparent in this race and before. Folks this race, right now, our opponents are desperate to shift the focus here from the substantive issues and focus on what you are concerned with,” Robinson said in the video, shared exclusively with NR. We are staying in this race we are in to win it.”

SCOOP: Ahead of expected bombshell report form CNN on Lt. Gov. @markrobinsonNC, the North Carolina republican Gov nominee says in video statement first shared with @NRO that he's "staying in this race"

WATCH: pic.twitter.com/Uk0nzCJNpG

— Audrey Fahlberg (@AudreyFahlberg) September 19, 2024

Earlier Thursday afternoon, Robinson spokesman Michael Lonergan told National Review it's "complete fiction" that the lieutenant governor will drop out of the race.

Getting a placeholder candidate would be tricky now that Robinson's name is already on the ballot in his general-election race against Democrat Josh Stein. The question is whether the North Carolina GOP should rally behind a placeholder candidate to salvage Republicans' electoral prospects up and down the ballot in this red-leaning battleground, especially now that Vice President Kamala Harris is gaining on Donald Trump in the presidential race.

The deadline to drop out of the race is Thursday evening. If he does suspend his campaign, the North Carolina GOP would pick a replacement candidate.

As one well-connected source put it in an interview with National Review: "The entire conservative political world in North Carolina is in a panic."

Republican worries about Robinson's general election viability are not new. "Those with concerns about Robinson fear his controversial views, as well as his checkered personal and campaign finance history, will alienate suburban and independent voters in 2024 as Republicans try to flip the the gubernatorial seat of term-limited Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper," I reported in The Dispatch in June 2023.