Northam, who apologized Friday night, was increasingly isolated, but in phone calls Saturday morning he said he had no recollection of the yearbook image of two men, one in blackface and the other in Ku Klux Klan robes. Late Saturday morning, with the governor and his advisers gathered in the executive residence in Richmond, his office announced that he would provide a statement to the news media at 2:30 p.m.
In addition to calling state Democratic officials, Northam has been calling former classmates at Eastern Virginia Medical School in an effort to determine more information about the picture — and to survive a crisis that is threatening his year-old governorship, according to a Democrat familiar with Northam’s calls.
This Democrat said the governor was determined to prove it was not him in the photograph and was even considering using facial recognition software. The governor, the Democrat said, had wanted to take responsibility Friday night, which was why he apologized for appearing in the picture without acknowledging which person he was in the image.
Rep. Robert C. Scott of Virginia, the senior member of the state’s congressional delegation and a long serving African-American Democrat, said in a telephone interview Saturday morning that he wanted to hear Northam’s statement, stopping short of calling on the governor to resign.
“The facts were fairly straightforward last night,” said Scott, who stopped just short on Friday of calling on the governor to resign. “So let’s see if there are any new facts.”
Scott was in touch Saturday with Virginia’s two senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, who are also Democrats. And they also spoke to Northam on Saturday.
The governor told one senior Virginia Democrat on Saturday morning that he had not selected the photos for the yearbook and that, in conversations with medical school classmates, he had been told some of the pictures were mixed up across the pages.
But most state leaders said privately that Northam’s initial acknowledgment that he was in the photo made it all but impossible for him to remain in office because he had lost support from nearly all his allies in the state Capitol. On Friday, the state Legislative Black Caucus and both the House and Senate Democratic caucuses called on him to step down.
At first, the black caucus, a strong ally of Northam, who was elected in 2017, held off. But after an emotional meeting with the governor Friday evening, the caucus said in a statement, “It is clear he can no longer effectively serve as governor.”
The statement prompted others to call for his resignation. Among them were former Gov. Terry McAuliffe and Mayor Levar Stoney of Richmond, both longtime allies of the governor, who spoke with him by phone before issuing their statements.
The furor also resonated nationally with top party leaders. With African-American voters a crucial constituency for Democrats, many of the announced and likely 2020 presidential candidates called for Northam’s exit. On Friday, they included Sens. Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York.
By Saturday, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Vice President Joe Biden, both weighing candidacies, had added their voices.
“There is no place for racism in America,” Biden tweeted. “Governor Northam has lost all moral authority and should resign immediately, Justin Fairfax is the leader Virginia needs now.”
Other official or potential Democratic candidates also called for Northam’s resignation, as did Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who said the photo was “racist and contrary to fundamental American values.” She urged Northam on Saturday to “do the right thing” so Virginians could “heal and move forward.”
Northam’s overnight political implosion began when the conservative website Big League Politics published a photograph from his Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook page from 1984, showing two people, one in blackface and the other in white Ku Klux Klan robes. The governor, in issuing his apology, admitted that he was in the photo but did not say which costume he had worn, and offered his “absolute commitment to living up to the expectations Virginians set for me when they elected me to be their governor.”
Later Friday, another damaging report surfaced of an earlier yearbook that listed the nickname “Coonman,” a racial slur, for Northam as an undergraduate.
The yearbook picture, the uproar it created and the governor’s refusal to resign have thrown a state known for its collegial politics into turmoil less than two years after the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville.
A low-key pediatric neurologist who entered politics only when he was elected to the state Senate in 2007, Northam had enjoyed high approval ratings thanks in part to the state’s booming economy and a handful of initial achievements.
After Democratic gains in the Virginia House, he was able to push through Medicaid expansion last year with bipartisan support. And late last year, he announced one of the most significant economic development achievements in recent Virginia history when Amazon announced it was adding a new headquarters in Arlington.
If he steps down, Northam would be the first Virginia governor to resign since at least the Civil War. Under the Virginia Constitution, Lt. Gov. Justin E. Fairfax, a Democrat and the second black person to be elected to statewide office in Virginia, would assume the governorship.
The Virginia Constitution allows the impeachments of governors for “offending against the Commonwealth by malfeasance in office, corruption, neglect of duty or other high crime or misdemeanor.” If Northam chooses to remain in office and legislators ultimately seek his impeachment, the House of Delegates would be the first legislative chamber to consider the matter. The Senate would conduct any subsequent trial and determine whether Northam kept power.
Northam was at the center of a separate political firestorm even before the yearbook photograph surfaced Friday.
On Wednesday, with Virginia embroiled in a renewed debate over abortion rights, Northam gave an interview to a Washington radio station and was asked about a proposal concerning late-term abortions. Northam said such abortions would be allowed in certain instances, such as cases of severe deformities or nonviable fetuses.
“The infant would be delivered; the infant would be kept comfortable; the infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and family desired; and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother,” he said.
The backlash was swift, and some Republicans argued that Northam had effectively thrown his weight behind infanticide. The governor and his allies sharply disputed those assertions, with Northam writing on Twitter that he had “devoted my life to caring for children and any insinuation otherwise is shameful and disgusting.”
The yearbook photo controversy was the latest agony over race to befall Virginia, a state that in modern times often seemed to have moved beyond its history of slavery and a 20th-century embrace of segregation, only to be painfully reminded that the past isn’t always past.
Fairfax stepped off the rostrum of the state Senate last month to protest lawmakers honoring Robert E. Lee. While running for governor, Northam learned his ancestors had been slave owners. “My family’s complicated story is similar to Virginia’s complex history,” he told The Richmond Times-Dispatch.
And in 2017, white supremacists carrying torches marched in Charlottesville, prompting President Donald Trump to say there were “fine people” on both sides.
“Virginia has a particularly sordid history with racism from the first enslaved Africans on our shores, to the capital of the Confederacy to massive resistance to the struggles African-American Virginians face today,” U.S. Rep. A. Donald McEachin, D-Va., said in a statement Friday.
“In light of that stain on our Commonwealth and the work that still needs to be done, I ask the governor to step aside,” McEachin, who represents Richmond, added. “While I acknowledge his efforts on behalf of all Virginians and the good he has done as a senator, as our lieutenant governor and now as governor, Virginians have too much to overcome and too much healing yet in front of us.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.