NC gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson hospitalized following 'incident' at campaign event
North Carolina gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson was hospitalized following an "incident" at a campaign event on Friday evening, Fox News Digital has confirmed.
It happened while Robinson was attending the Mayberry Truck Show in Mt. Airy, North Carolina.
"Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson was treated at Northern Regional Hospital for second-degree burns. He is in good spirits, appreciates the outpouring of well wishes, and is excited to return to the campaign trail as scheduled first thing tomorrow morning," Mike Lonergan, Robinson's campaign communications director told Fox News Digital.
It's unclear exactly how Robinson was burned.
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson was hospitalized Friday evening after he was burned at a campaign event, Fox News Digital confirmed. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Robinson, the current Republican lieutenant governor running against Democratic state Attorney General Josh Stein to replace Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper in the battleground state, was recently accused of making controversial comments on a porn website.
Robinson denies the allegations. He hired an attorney who previously worked for former President Trump. The Binnall Law Group from northern Virginia is investigating claims raised in a CNN report published earlier this week.
"Normally, something like this, an investigation, you know, run by the Department of Justice and the FBI would take months or years," Binnall previously told Fox News Digital. "We can't do that in this case because the voters need an answer before the election. And so we are going to move very quickly and still give them a very fulsome report."
"He absolutely denies saying any of the things that are in the CNN piece," Binnall said of Robinson. "What my investigation is going to do is we are going to follow the facts. We are going to investigate this strenuously. We are going to leave no stone unturned. We're going to be very, very aggressive. And the citizens of North Carolina deserve nothing less than a full investigation of this matter, which is what we are going to do."
It's unclear how Robinson was burned. (Grant Baldwin/Getty Images)
The CNN report surfaced comments Robinson allegedly made more than a decade ago on a porn site messaging board, including describing himself as a "black NAZI;" saying he enjoyed transgender pornography; saying that he preferred Hitler to then-President Barack Obama in 2012; and criticizing the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as "worse than a maggot."
Robinson has denied saying those words, but Republicans have begun to distance themselves from the candidate, who, if elected, would be North Carolina's first Black governor. Trump did not mention Robinson, who he endorsed before the March primary and has spoken at other Trump events, during the Republican presidential nominee's campaign rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, Saturday.
"The allegations against me are outright lies, fabricated to distract voters from Josh Stein’s disastrous record," Robinson previously said in a statement to Fox News Digital regarding the investigation. "The great people of North Carolina deserve the truth, and I am fully committed to ensuring they get it with complete transparency."
Fox News Digital's Danielle Wallace contributed to this report.