ELLERBE, NC (AP) — Addressing more than 100 supporters in front of an ice cream stand shaped like a giant strawberry, Lt. The Republican governor of North Carolina. Mark Robinson he bashed his Democratic rival for governor and the media and said he would continue to fight as their race draws to a close.

“I am on the battlefield for the people of this state,” he said in a stump speech on Wednesday.

In what was once expected to be one of the tightest races of the year, a candidate who won the endorsement and effusive praise of former President Donald Trump continues to defend himself as Election Day looms. He was outflanked by his Democratic opponent, state Attorney General Josh Stein, and is still trying to soften the impact of a CNN report on offensive comments he allegedly made on an online porn site years before he ran for public office .

Answering questions from reporters outside The Berry Patch in Ellerbe, 90 miles (145 kilometers) southwest of Raleigh, Robinson said he still believes he will win.

“People don’t care about salty lies that supposedly happened 15 years ago. They don’t care about Facebook posts from 10 years ago,” Robinson said. “What they care about is how they’re going to feed their families, how they’re going to keep their business open, how they’re going to give their kid a great education.”

North Carolina was early projected as the governor’s race to watch this fall — a battleground state clash where statewide races are typically close and for a position Democrats have held for the past 32 years , except for four.

In the final days of the campaign, the odds appeared to favor another Democrat to succeed term-limited Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.

Stein has held a lead over Robinson in several polls of North Carolina voters taken since Labor Day. Campaign finance reports filed this week had Stein’s campaign on a massive roll — $44.6 million raised in a 3 1/2-month period ending in mid-October and $59.3 million spent in the same period. Meanwhile, Robinson’s campaign committee raised $4.1 million and spent nearly $10 million. During the election cycle, Stein outpolled Robinson by a nearly 4-to-1 margin.

Stein’s financial advantage and support from allies helped him insistently remind voters of Robinson’s direct statements about abortionwomen and LGBTQ+ people that they argue should disqualify him for the job while promoting the attorney general’s accomplishments.

Robinson’s support had its biggest impact when CNN reported in September that Robinson had made racially and sexually explicit posts on a pornography site’s message board more than a decade ago. Robinson has denied writing the messages, which the Associated Press has not independently confirmed and sued CNN for defamation in October.

The lawsuit is pending, but the report had immediate repercussions. Robinson’s top campaign staff resigned. The Republican Governors Association pulled the plug on television advertising for Robinson. His campaign is no longer running ads and is focusing on social media and events in small towns and rural areas like Ellerbe, where the GOP presence is large.

Trump has not rescinded his endorsement of Robinson, a man he once described as “Martin Luther King on steroids,” but Robinson no longer appears at Trump rallies. Asked last week while visiting Hurricane Helene recovery efforts in western North Carolina if he would urge voters to continue to support Robinson, Trump said: “I’m not familiar with the state of the race at this point.”

Robinson said Wednesday that he had spoken with Trump since the CNN report aired and “his message to me was to keep going, keep fighting and win this race.”

Stein, meanwhile, assumes nothing. He reminds supporters that he won re-election as attorney general in 2020 by less than 13,000 votes. He’s encouraging get-out-the-vote efforts for him, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and down-ballot races.

“We work hard, with our heads down. We’re running hard to the finish line,” Stein told reporters after meeting with Democratic Party volunteers Tuesday in Smithfield, 30 miles southeast of Raleigh. “It’s about trying to talk to as many voters as possible about the clarity of the choice between our positive, hopeful and optimistic vision and (Robinson’s) divisive, angry and hateful vision.”

Robinson told supporters Wednesday that Stein spent $50 million on ads simply to promote an “I don’t like Mark Robinson” platform. Robinson said that if elected, he would expand on tax and education policies passed by fellow Republicans who control the General Assembly. Stein’s platform largely follows Cooper’s policy prescriptions for public schools and clean energy and against abortion restrictions and the expansion of private school vouchers.

Catastrophic flooding from Helene marred the campaign. As attorney general, Stein spoke at news conferences about the recovery and met with President Joe Biden when he visited. Robinson criticized Cooper for the state’s initial response and worked with a sheriff to deliver relief supplies to the mountains.

Robinson, who would be the state’s first black governor, still has support among conservatives — many of whom appreciate his working-class background and emergence as a vocal advocate for gun rights before becoming lieutenant governor. Stein would be the state’s first Jewish governor.

Some top Republican officials, including House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger, have not publicly cut ties with Robinson. Several statewide GOP candidates are also endorsing him.

At The Berry Patch, school retiree Raymond Moore, 69, of Ellerbe, who attended many Robinson events, called him “a good man, a good solid man” and dismissed the allegations. “Everybody has a past,” Moore said. “I know what he is today.”

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Associated Press writer Amelia Thomson DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.

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