“I am deeply sorry for the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo and for the hurt that decision caused then and now,” Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, said in a statement Friday evening.
Northam issued his statement hours after the photograph — which was included on his 1984 yearbook page from Eastern Virginia Medical School and appeared alongside other pictures of himself — became public. Neither person in the black-and-white photograph was identified, and Northam, a pediatric neurologist who was elected Virginia’s governor in 2017, did not confirm which costume he had worn.
He faced intensifying bipartisan pressure Friday night to step down, including calls from five Democratic presidential candidates: Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Julián Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio.
But Northam suggested that he would try to remain in office.
Calls for his resignation also came from Derrick Johnson, president of the NAACP; Mayor Levar Stoney of Richmond; and three Democratic members of the state’s congressional delegation, Reps. Donald McEachin, Abigail Spanberger and Elaine Luria; and the Democratic state House caucus.
The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus initially stopped just short of demanding his resignation, but after meeting with the governor, it said, “It is time for him to resign, so that Virginia can begin the process of healing.”
The chairman of the state Republican Party, Jack Wilson, called for the governor’s resignation and condemned the picture as “wholly inappropriate” before Northam admitted he was in it.
Some Virginia Democrats defended Northam and said he should not quit.
“The picture was in extremely poor taste, no question about that, but his life since then has been anything but,” said Richard Saslaw, the Democratic leader of the Virginia Senate.
Saslaw added: “Which of the 140 of us would want to have revealed what we were doing in our early to mid-20s?”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.