New allegations exacerbate Mark Robinson's problems in North Carolina

Mark Robinson's Republican gubernatorial campaign in North Carolina had already stalled. Although the Tar Heel State appears to be very competitive on the presidential ballot this year, all recent polls showed Robinson trailing Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein — by double digits in some polls.

But the right-wing candidate's troubles are far from over. Recent reports from CNN have made things even worse for Robinson.

Robinson disputed the accuracy of the reporting, which was not independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News. But CNN added that the network was able to confirm the username belonged to Robinson “by matching a litany of biographical details and a shared email address between the two.”

To complicate matters further, Politico also published a new report, also not independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, claiming that an email address belonging to Robinson “was registered with Ashley Madison, a website for married people looking for an affair.”

The report added that an adviser to the gubernatorial candidate confirmed to Politico that “the email address in question belongs to Robinson.”

Certainly the extremist candidate was a scandalous figure before These revelations have become public knowledge. In addition, the Republican candidate has been forced to deal with a series of controversies in recent weeks, involving everything from pornography to abortion, from bankruptcies to contraception.

But by any standard, the latest allegations, if true, are the most brutal. Republicans usually do well in North Carolina, but when a hopeless candidate is credibly accused of calling himself a “black NAZI!” who doesn't believe slavery was necessarily a “bad thing,” that's a hard sell for the state's voters.

Shortly before CNN published its report, the right-wing candidate filmed a brief online statement insisting that he would “stay in the race.”