Half of Democrats in Virginia still approve of Gov. Ralph Northam, despite a growing chorus of state and national party leaders calling on him to resign over a racist photo on his medical school yearbook page, according to a new poll.
The net approval rating for Northam, a Democrat, among Virginia voters at large plummeted by 41 percentage points over the weekend after it emerged that his page in Eastern Virginia Medical School’s 1984 yearbook featured an image of a man in blackface and another wearing Ku Klux Klan robes, a Morning Consult survey found. The poll reported that his approval rating was at 29 percent, down 19 points since January.
Northam’s popularity also declined among Virginia Democrats. But while the former pediatric neurologist and Army doctor’s net approval sunk by 38 points compared to January figures, 50 percent of his party still supported the job he was doing as the state’s chief executive.
Elected to the governor’s mansion in 2017, he beat Republican candidate Ed Gillespie by 9 points in the general election after defeating Democratic primary opponent Tom Perriello by double digits. Governors in Virginia are term-limited and are prohibited from seeking consecutive terms.
Northam, previously the state’s lieutenant general, apologized for the photo last Friday. He later expressed doubt he was in the photograph, but told reporters at a press conference on Saturday he once wore blackface in 1984 when he dressed up as Michael Jackson for a dance contest. He has stated publicly on multiple occasions that he intends to serve the remainder of his term.
The Morning Consult poll surveyed 291 Virginia voters between Feb. 2 and Feb. 3 after the image was published online Friday. The results for voters across the state have a margin of error of plus or minus 6 percentage points. Its findings for just Democrats have a larger margin of error of plus or minus 10 points.
