When Donald Trump appeared on stage in North Carolina on Saturday, he was missing his usual sidekick.

Just two days before Trump’s trip to the state, which is one of the closest of this election cycle, the gubernatorial campaign of one of his closest allies was thrown into disarray.

Donald Trump dances after speaking at a campaign rally at Wilmington International Airport in North Carolina.Credit: AP

Mark Robinson, the firebrand Republican, was accused of describing himself as a “black Nazi” in comments on the amateur black erotic website, Nude Africa.

In the posts, it was claimed that he revealed his love of pornography featuring transgender actors and said: “Slavery is not bad. I wish they would bring it [slavery] back. I would certainly buy a few.”

The comments were allegedly posted between 2008 and 2012, employing a username that Robinson has used on other social media sites, and disclosing his location to other users of the forum.

The former president had described Robinson, who is currently North Carolina’s Republican lieutenant-governor, as a friend who was “better than Martin Luther King”.

Republican Mark Robinson speaking on the first day of the 2024 Republican National Convention, in Milwaukee.Credit: AP

But on Saturday, Trump made no reference to the story. In a 66-minute address to supporters in Wilmington, North Carolina, he repeated many of his usual stump-speech lines and crowd-pleasing policy pledges.

Trump is undeniably popular in North Carolina – the only one of the seven swing states in this election that he won in 2020 – but this time he is neck-and-neck with Kamala Harris in the polls.

The Robinson........

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