North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson was back on the campaign trail on Monday, speaking to supporters outside a bakery in Wilkesboro and imploring to ignore the “salacious lies” about disturbing and bigoted comments he has been accused of making on a pornographic website's forum.

The appearance came a day after at least four top officials on his campaign stepped down and two days after former President Donald Trump came to the state to campaign without Robinson, once a fixture at his North Carolina rallies and someone the Republican presidential nominee called "Martin Luther King on steroids.”

“I'm gonna start off by ignoring all their salacious lies. We're not gonna talk about that,” Robinson said after pointing out reporters at the event, including one from Spectrum News. “We are not interested in turning back and looking backwards except to see the mistakes that we've made in this state politically so that we do not repeat them.”

He made his appeal to supporters that it was imperative a Republican take back the governor’s mansion from incumbent Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and keep it from Robinson’s challenger, Democratic state Attorney General Josh Stein. Once elected, Robinson argued, his appointments to lead state government agencies — including the Department of Public Safety, the state Board of Education, the state Department of Health and Human Services and others — would achieve Republicans’ policy goals. 

Without him, none of that would be possible, he said. Though he did not mention it, the state’s deadline for him to drop out of the race and be replaced passed last week.

“This election is not about me. And it's certainly not about the trash that the news media wants to talk about. This election is about you,” Robinson said. “We just need to fill in that one spot, which is the governor's mansion. And with your help, we can do that.”

Many Republicans, particularly those in North Carolina, have distanced themselves from Robinson in the days since CNN reported he left comments on a porn website more than a decade ago describing himself as “a black NAZI,” expressing support for slavery and saying he preferred Adolf Hitler over then-President Barack Obama.

But few have directly called on him to step aside. The state GOP doubled-down on its support, calling CNN's reporting a “smear.” Trump has yet to address the growing crisis in a key presidential battleground state, but his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, told an NBC News affiliate in Philadelphia on Saturday that “ultimately” it was up to Robinson and North Carolina voters if their lieutenant governor should ascend to the state’s top job. Vance is scheduled to be in the state for two events in Charlotte later on Monday evening.

“The allegations are pretty far out there, of course, but I know that allegations aren’t necessarily reality,” Vance said. “I don’t not believe him, I don’t believe him — I just think that you have to let these things sometimes play out in the court of public opinion.”

While the campaign started out as a closer race between Robinson and Stein earlier this year, polls since mid-July have shown Stein with a stable and growing lead, reaching double digits in some surveys. Stein said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that Robinson is "utterly unqualified, unfit to be the governor of North Carolina, and we're going to do everything in our power to keep that from happening."

Now, Robinson is without his senior adviser, campaign manager, campaign finance manager and deputy campaign manager and faces a barrage of negative headlines that threaten to hamper Trump’s campaign as Vice President Kamala Harris zeroes in on the state. Already, a convicted fraudster has claimed to be running Robinson’s campaign, forcing the lieutenant governor to issue a statement of denial.

“We have full confidence that we can go on. We’re getting resumes from all over, we’re getting offers from all over, people are jumping in to help us,” Robinson said on Monday. “A lot of talented people right now are reaching out to us and we're right in the process right now of forming a team that we know can still lead us to victory. So we have full confidence in our ability to keep going.”

“The timing doesn’t matter, it’s not the timing, it’s how you react. And we are ready to react,” Robinson said.

He added he was talking to “legal counsel” about “going after” CNN for its reporting, but noted there was only five weeks left in the race and said “we’re not going to let CNN throw us off our mission.” CNN did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Before Robinson spoke, he was introduced by Ron Baity, a local pastor whose church Robinson once used to question the “purpose” of being gay and call straight people “superior” to LGBTQ+ people. 

“This man stands up for life. This man stands for the values that this nation was founded upon. And when people come along and they try to destroy his character, that doesn't mean that these people are correct and they're right in what they're saying,” Baity said. “They just despise this man because they know if he gets in the governor's chair in Raleigh, he’s going to change some things in this state that need to be changed.”