ELLERBE, N.C. – North Carolina Republican Lt. Governor addressing more than 100 supporters in front of a giant strawberry-shaped ice cream stand. mark robinson He hammered his Democratic rival for governor and the media and said he would continue to fight as their race draws to a close.

“I’m on the battlefield for the people of this state,” he said Wednesday.

In what was once expected to be one of the fiercest primary ballot races of the year, a candidate who won former President Donald Trump’s endorsement and enthusiastic praise continues to play defense as Election Day approaches. He was badly outmatched by his Democratic opponent, State Attorney General Josh Stein, and is still trying to blunt the impact of a CNN report about offensive comments he allegedly made on an online porn site years before running for public office.

Answering questions from reporters outside The Berry Patch in Ellerbe, 90 miles (145 kilometers) southwest of Raleigh, Robinson said he still believes he will win.

“People don’t care about the obscene lies that allegedly happened 15 years ago. “They don’t care about those Facebook posts from 10 years ago,” Robinson said. “What they care about is how they’re going to feed their family, how they’re going to keep their business open, how they’re going to run their business. Give their children a good education.”

It was previously predicted that North Carolina would be the governor’s race to watch this fall; It’s a battleground state battle where statewide races are often close and for a position Democrats have held in all but four of the past 32 years.

In the final days of the campaign, the advantages of replacing term-limited Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper with another Democrat emerged.

Stein has been ahead of Robinson in several polls of North Carolina voters since Labor Day. In campaign finance reports filed this week, Stein’s campaign made an outsized impact – raising $44.6 million in the 3.5-month period ending in mid-October and spending $59.3 million during the same period. Meanwhile, Robinson’s campaign committee raised $4.1 million and spent almost $10 million. During the election cycle, Stein outsold Robinson by a nearly 4-to-1 margin.

Stein’s financial advantage and the support he received from his allies helped him persistently remind voters of Robinson’s outspoken statements on the issue. abortionwomen and LGBTQ+ people While they encourage the Attorney General’s accomplishments, they also argue they should disqualify him from the job.

Robinson’s support took the biggest hit when CNN reported in September that Robinson had made explicit racist and sexual posts on a pornography website message board more than a decade ago. Robinson refused to write messages that the Associated Press had not independently verified, and sued CNN for insult in October.

The case is ongoing, but the report had immediate repercussions. Robinson’s senior campaign staff resigned. The Republican Governors Association pulled the plug on Robinson’s television ads. His campaign no longer runs ads and focuses on social media and events in small towns and rural areas like Ellerbe, where GOP turnout is high.

Trump has not retracted his support for Robinson, whom he once described as “Martin Luther King on steroids,” but Robinson no longer attends Trump rallies. When asked last week while visiting Hurricane Helene recovery efforts in Western North Carolina whether he would urge voters to continue supporting Robinson, Trump replied: “I’m not familiar with the state of the race right now.”

Robinson said Wednesday that he had spoken to Trump since the CNN report came out and “his message to me is to keep going, keep fighting and win this race.”

Stein, meanwhile, assumes nothing. He reminds his supporters that he won re-election as attorney general in 2020 by fewer than 13,000 votes. He has been promoting get-out-the-vote efforts for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and down-ballot races.

“We’ve got our heads down, we’ve been working hard. We’re sprinting across the finish line,” Stein told reporters Tuesday after meeting with Democratic Party volunteers in Smithfield, 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Raleigh. “This is about trying to talk to as many voters as possible about the clarity of the choice between our positive, hopeful and optimistic vision and (Robinson’s) divisive, angry and hateful vision.”

Robinson told supporters Wednesday that Stein spent $50 million on ads just to promote his “I don’t like Mark Robinson” platform. If elected, Robinson said he would expand fiscal and education policies approved by Republicans who control the General Assembly. Stein’s platform largely follows Cooper’s policy prescriptions for public schools and clean energy, against abortion restrictions and expansion of private school vouchers.

Helene’s devastating flooding affected the campaign. As attorney general, Stein spoke at news conferences on the recovery and met with President Joe Biden during his visit. Robinson criticized Cooper for the state’s initial response and worked with a sheriff to deliver relief supplies into the mountains.

Robinson, who would be the state’s first black governor, still enjoys support among conservatives; Many of them appreciate his working-class story and his emergence as a fierce gun rights advocate before becoming lieutenant governor. Stein would become the state’s first Jewish governor.

Some top Republican officials, including House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate Leader Phil Berger, have not publicly cut ties with Robinson. Several statewide GOP candidates also still support him.

At The Berry Patch, retired school superintendent Raymond Moore, 69, of Ellerbe, who attended many Robinson events, called Robinson “a good guy, a good solid guy” and dismissed the accusations. “Everyone has a past,” Moore said. “I know what happened today.”

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Associated Press writer Amelia Thomson DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.