Welcome to this week’s edition of the Surge, a newsletter that has never had an intimate texting relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. We don’t have his number!

First, an important public service announcement: Surge Enterprises is expanding and will soon take over all media. Each Friday through the election, the Surge will join host Mary Harris on Slate’s What Next podcast for 15 minutes of gabbing about the most important political nonsense of the week. That means: More stray gags and polling analysis, only this time, in spoken form. Exclusive to Slate Plus subscribers.

There was so much politics this week. We look at where and whether Vice President Kamala Harris’ debate performance helped her and how Donald Trump reacted to the gunman on his golf course. The House is undergoing its usual ritual of elaborate self-flagellation before funding the government. And Melania Trump’s memoir marketing has worked, as she’s landed a spot on the Surge.

Let’s begin with the North Carolina porn man.

By Jim Newell

North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, whose support from Trump guided him to the state’s Republican gubernatorial nomination, was already well established as a fringe kook who’d likely cost Republicans a winnable race. New revelations this week, though, fully toxified him—and could have a costly effect on the presidential race. A CNN investigation found a history of comments he made between 2008 and 2012 on the message board for Nude Africa, a porn site. Robinson, CNN reported, referred to himself as a “black NAZI!” and declared himself a “perv,” writing of his love for “watching tranny on girl porn! That’s f*cking hot!” (Robinson’s campaign rhetoric has been sharply transphobic.) He reportedly referred to Martin Luther King Jr. as a “f*cking commie bastard” and said “slavery is not bad,” adding that he might like to “buy a few.” And on and on and on. Robinson denied making any of the comments and said he wasn’t “going to get into the minutia of how somebody manufactured this, these salacious tabloid lies.” Despite some last-minute pressure from Republicans to drop out of the race, though, Robinson stayed in past a key Thursday night deadline for withdrawing. If Robinson’s position in the race tanks much further, he threatens to drag Trump down with him—in a state that the Harris campaign was already targeting in large part because of Robinson’s weakness. The presidential race in North Carolina is one of the closest in the country. If it moves even another point or so in Harris’ direction, it meaningfully widens her path to the presidency.

For the second time in the past couple of months, there was an apparent assassination........

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