Reports are swirling of a bombshell story coming Thursday about North Carolina Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson, one that is apparently bad enough that his staff and members of Donald Trump’s campaign are calling on him to withdraw from his race over it.

Details are murky right now. But Carolina Journal reported earlier Thursday that Robinson, who is currently the state’s lieutenant governor, is the subject of a forthcoming news story that involves his activity on adult websites in the 2000s.

According to this report, Robinson does not want to withdraw and denies the story.

Thursday night is the state’s deadline to withdraw from a race. But even if Robinson did abruptly withdraw, it’s too late for him to remove his name from the ballot. The deadline for that has already passed, and absentee ballots are set to go out Friday.

Weirdly, per North Carolina law, in the event that Robinson did drop out at this late stage in the campaign and someone else ran in his place, any votes cast for Robinson would be counted as votes for the replacement nominee.
Robinson was supposed to join Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance at a rally on Wednesday, but he was not there. His office said Robinson had tested positive for Covid.

The GOP gubernatorial nominee has been steadily trailing in the polls against his opponent, the state’s Democratic attorney general Josh Stein.

Robinson, like Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, has a long history of making sexist, homophobic and otherwise offensive remarks, in addition to peddling wild conspiracy theories. He has modeled himself after Trump, who endorsed Robinson in March.