Days after a CNN report about racist and sexual comments posted on a pornography forum, all but a few of Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s campaign team quit their jobs on Sunday.
A campaign news release said that four top staffers have left the campaign: Conrad Pogorzelski, general consultant and senior advisor who’s worked for Robinson since his initial 2020 lieutenant governor campaign; Chris Rodriguez, campaign manager; Heather Whillier, finance director; and Jason Rizk, deputy campaign manager.
But WUNC has confirmed that other staffers have quit as well, leaving Robinson with just three people working on his campaign — two campaign spokesmen and a bodyguard. The list of departures also include longtime director of operations Patrick Riley and political directors John Kontoulas and Jackson Lohrer.
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DeSantis took a good shot at being Trump 2.0. He had the media attention, truckloads of money, a bully pulpit he used to attack “Wokeism” 24/7 while implementing actual hard right policies. On paper, he should have attracted MAGA voters, at the very least as a possible successor to Trump. Instead, it just… didn’t work.
Trump captured lightning in a bottle in 2016. He was able to present himself as this John Galt-like figure while also leveraging his media savvy to control narratives and dominate coverage. Obviously, not everyone bought it, but enough did to win the election. No one on the right has those qualities now. It may not even be possible to duplicate. At this point, even the 2024 version of Trump is failing to live up to 2016 Trump.