RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson will not appear at former President Donald Trump ’s rally on Saturday in the battleground state following a CNN report about Robinson’s alleged disturbing online posts, an absence that illustrates the liability the gubernatorial candidate poses for Trump and down-ballot GOP candidates.

Robinson is not expected to attend the event in Wilmington, according to a person on the Trump campaign and a second person familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning.

Robinson has been a frequent presence at Trump’s North Carolina campaign stops. The Republican nominee has referred to Robinson, who is Black, as “Martin Luther King on steroids” and long praised him. But in the wake of Thursday’s CNN report, the Trump campaign issued a statement that didn’t mention Robinson and instead spoke generally about how North Carolina was key to the campaign’s efforts.

Robinson’s campaign didn’t respond to a text Friday seeking confirmation on his Saturday plans. The deadline in state law for Robinson to withdraw as the Republican candidate for governor passed late Thursday. State Republican leaders could have picked a replacement had a withdrawal occurred.

Robinson has denied writing the posts, which include racial and sexual comments. He said he wouldn’t be forced out of the race by “salacious tabloid lies.” While Robinson won his GOP gubernatorial primary in March, he’s been trailing in several recent polls to Democratic nominee Josh Stein, the state’s attorney general.

“Let me reassure you the things that you will see in that story — those are not the words of Mark Robinson,” he told supporters in a video released by his campaign. “You know my words. You know my character.”

State law says a gubernatorial nominee had until the day before the first absentee ballots requested by military and overseas voters are distributed to withdraw. They were distributed starting Friday.

Robinson has a history of inflammatory comments that Stein has said made him too extreme to lead North Carolina. They already have contributed to the prospect that campaign struggles for Robinson could help Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris win the state’s 16 electoral votes.

Democrats jumped on Robinson and other Republicans after the report aired, showing on social media photos of Robinson with Trump or with other GOP candidates, attempting to tarnish them by association. Losing swing district races for a congressional seat and the General Assembly would endanger the GOP’s control of the U.S. House and retaining veto-proof majorities at the legislature.

“The fallout is going to be huge,” Chris Cooper, a political science professor at Western Carolina University, said Friday. “The Democrats are counting on this ... having a big effect.” But Cooper said Republicans could limit problems to the governor’s race only if upward ticket-splitting trends continue.

Harris’ campaign rolled out a new ad Friday it calls the first to link Trump to a down-ballot candidate. The commercial alternates between Trump’s praise for Robinson and the lieutenant governor’s comments which his critics have argued show his support for a statewide abortion ban without exceptions. Robinson’s campaign has argued that’s not true.

The Democratic National Committee is also running billboards in three major cities showing a photo of Robinson and Trump and comments Trump has said about him. And a fundraising appeal Friday by Jeff Jackson, Democratic attorney general candidate, also includes a past video showing Republican opponent Dan Bishop saying he endorsed Robinson.

“Every North Carolinian when they go to vote ought to look at whether a candidate has done that, because that sends a strong message about who you are as a candidate,” Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper, a top Harris surrogate, said at a Friday news conference.

CNN’s story, which describes a series of comments that it said Robinson posted on the message board more than a decade ago, sent tremors through the state’s political class, particularly Republicans.

While the state Republican Party came to Robinson’s defense late Thursday pointing out he’s “categorically denied the allegations,” party Chairman Jason Simmons put out his own statement Friday calling them “deeply troubling” and that Robinson “needs to explain them to the people of North Carolina.”

U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who endorsed a Robinson rival in the primary, said on X that Thursday “was a tough day, but we must stay focused on the races we can win.” He didn’t mention the governor’s race.

U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, chairman of House Republicans’ campaign arm, discounted Robinson’s impact in North Carolina congressional races.

CNN reported that Robinson, who would be North Carolina’s first Black governor, attacked on the message board civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in searing terms and once referred to himself as a “black NAZI.” CNN also reported that Robinson wrote of being aroused by a memory of “peeping” women in gym showers when he was 14 along with an appreciation of transgender pornography. Robinson at one point referred to himself as a “perv,” according to CNN.

The Associated Press has not independently confirmed that Robinson wrote and posted the messages. CNN said it matched details of the account on the pornographic website forum to other online accounts held by Robinson by comparing usernames, a known email address and his full name.

CNN reported that details discussed by the account holder matched Robinson’s age, length of marriage and other biographical information. It also compared figures of speech that came up frequently in his public Twitter profile that appeared in discussions by the account on the pornographic website.

___

Price reported from New York. Associated Press writers Kevin Freking in Washington, Meg Kinnard in Chapin, South Carolina and Makiya Seminera in Raleigh contributed to this report.