ELLERBE, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina's Republican lieutenant governor spoke to more than 100 supporters in front of an ice cream stand shaped like a giant strawberry. Mark Robinson blasted his Democratic rival for governor and the media, saying he would keep fighting as their race nears its end.

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

In one of the toughest election campaigns of the year, a candidate who won the support and effusive praise of former President Donald Trump was expected to continue to lead the defense election day Looms. He was vastly outgunned by his Democratic opponent, Attorney General Josh Stein, and he is still trying to blunt the impact of a CNN report about offensive comments he allegedly made on an online porn site years before he ran for public office .

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

“People don’t care about the salacious 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 feed their families, how they keep their businesses running and how they give their child a good education.”

Early on, North Carolina was projected to be a contender in this fall's gubernatorial race – a competitive state battle in which statewide races are typically close and for a position that Democrats have held in all but four of the last 32 years.

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

Stein has had a lead over Robinson in several polls of North Carolina voters conducted since Labor Day. In campaign finance reports filed this week, Stein's campaign reported a massive sum: $44.6 million was raised in a three-and-a-half month period ending in mid-October and $59.3 million was spent during the same period. Robinson's campaign committee, meanwhile, raised $4.1 million and spent nearly $10 million. During the election cycle, Stein has outperformed Robinson by a margin of nearly 4 to 1.

Stein's financial advantage and support from allies helped them persistently remind voters of Robinson's blunt statements abortionwomen and LGBTQ+ people They argue he should disqualify him from the job while promoting the attorney general's accomplishments.

Robinson's support took the biggest hit when CNN reported in September that Robinson had posted explicitly racist and sexual posts on the message board of a pornography website more than a decade ago. Robinson denied writing the messages, which The Associated Press did not independently confirm, and sued CNN for defamation in October.

The lawsuit is pending, but the report had an immediate impact. Robinson's top campaign staff have quit. The Republican Governors Association pulled the plug on television advertising for Robinson. His campaign has stopped running commercials and is focusing on social media and events in small towns and rural areas like Ellerbe, where Republican turnout is high.

Trump has not revoked his support for Robinson, a man he once called “Martin Luther King on steroids,” but Robinson no longer appears at Trump rallies. When Trump was asked last week during a visit to Hurricane Helene recovery efforts in western North Carolina whether he would urge voters to continue supporting Robinson, Trump replied: “I'm not familiar with the state of the race at this time.”

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

Meanwhile, Stein isn't assuming anything. He reminds his supporters that he won re-election as attorney general in 2020 by fewer than 13,000 votes. He promotes election efforts for him and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, as well as campaigns, and supports other Democrats with money. As of mid-October, Stein's campaign had donated $12 million directly to the state Democratic Party.

“We work hard, with our heads down. We're running hard to the finish line,” Stein told reporters after meeting Democratic Party volunteers in Smithfield, 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Raleigh, on Tuesday. “It's about talking to as many voters as possible about the clarity of the choice between our positive, hopeful, optimistic vision and (Robinson's) divisive, angry and hateful vision.”

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

The catastrophic flooding of Helene affected the campaign. As attorney general, Stein spoke at news conferences about recovery and met with President Joe Biden during his visit. Robinson criticized Cooper for the state's initial response, working with a sheriff to get supplies to the mountains.

Robinson, who would be the state's first black governor, still enjoys the support of conservatives – many of whom appreciate his working-class background and his record as a vocal supporter of gun rights before he became lieutenant governor. Stein would be the state's first Jewish governor.

Some senior Republican officials, including House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate Leader Phil Berger, have not publicly severed ties with Robinson. Some statewide GOP candidates also still support him.

At the Berry Patch, retired school administrator Raymond Moore, 69, of Ellerbe, who has attended many Robinson events, called Robinson “a good man, a good, solid man” and denied the allegations. “Everyone 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.