Toward the end of 2007, Mark Robinson, now North Carolina’s Republican nominee for governor, made a decision that would change his life forever: He created a Facebook account.

Mr. Robinson, then 39 and running a home day care with his wife, has said that he signed up just so he could post about pro wrestling. But eventually his posts turned political, reflecting his perspective as a Black hard-right conservative. He soon realized that he was good at attracting attention as an online troll.

“I wanted people to come at me,” he wrote in his memoir, published in 2022. “I wanted to be as in their faces as possible. I wanted people to read my page and go ‘What did he say? Did he really say that?’ And that’s what happened.”

This aptitude for provocation, coupled with a Christian-centered social conservatism and a flair for public speaking, would take Mr. Robinson, now 56, from obscurity to the pinnacles of politics in North Carolina, where he currently serves as lieutenant governor.

Now, though, Mr. Robinson’s campaign for governor is foundering after a CNN report linked him to sexually graphic and offensive comments posted anonymously on a pornography website between 2008 and 2012 — soon after he joined Facebook and began evolving into an online provocateur. He has filed a defamation suit against CNN, but has not offered evidence to support his claim that the report was “recklessly false.”

Even before the CNN report, Mr. Robinson was dropping in the polls as his Democratic opponent, Josh Stein, the state’s attorney general, highlighted extreme statements he had made over the years, such as that women who got abortions had not been “responsible enough to keep your skirt down.” Mr. Robinson has also made comments widely perceived as racist, antisemitic and transphobic.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in.

Want all of The Times? Subscribe.