Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson of North Carolina, the embattled Republican nominee for governor, filed a defamation lawsuit on Tuesday against CNN, which published an article last month linking him to lewd and offensive comments made years ago on a pornography website.

Mr. Robinson said at a news conference in Raleigh, N.C., that he had not made the comments that the CNN report attributed to him.

The report said that in posts on a porn site called Nude Africa, Mr. Robinson, who is running as a social conservative, described himself as a “black Nazi,” defended slavery and wrote that he enjoyed watching transgender porn.

“When times of trouble come in this thing we call politics, it separates the strong folks from the weak,” Mr. Robinson said at the news conference on Tuesday, standing with his lawyer, Jesse Binnall. “The weak will turn and run, and the strong will stand and fight. And that’s what we’re doing here today.”

While the lawsuit described the CNN article as “recklessly false,” it did not offer evidence to support that claim, besides saying that Mr. Robinson had previously been the victim of “multiple data breaches.”

CNN declined to comment on the lawsuit. The network has said that it connected the porn-site comments to Mr. Robinson by matching his email address and the username “minisoldr” to other online accounts belonging to him. CNN also reported that the “minisoldr” account had discussed topics that corresponded with Mr. Robinson’s interests and biographical information, such as his age and the length of his marriage.