Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan believes embattled Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam should vacate the neighboring state’s executive mansion.
“The governor of Virginia should resign. It’s completely unacceptable,” Hogan, a Republican, told reporters at a press conference on Wednesday. “I’m sure he’s lost the confidence of the people of Virginia, and I’ve been very clear.”
Hogan, who is openly considering challenging President Trump in next year’s GOP presidential primary, piled on as critics rushed to condemn Northam. Northam, a Democrat, faces mounting pressure to resign after a racist photo from his 1984 medical school yearbook was unearthed.
The image was of a man in blackface and another in Ku Klux Klan garb. The former pediatric neurologist and Army doctor denies being in the photo, but admitted to putting shoe polish on his face when he dressed up as Michael Jackson for a dance contest that same year.
Should Northam step down, it is unclear who will take his place as Virginia’s chief executive. Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, a Democrat, has become engulfed in his own scandal, facing an allegation that he forced Vanessa Tyson, a politics professor, to engage in oral sex during the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. Fairfax insists their encounter was consensual. The state’s attorney general, Mark Herring, on Wednesday also revealed he too has worn blackface, but in his case it was at a college party in 1980.
Both are Democrats. The state’s No. 4 official and third in line for the governorship, speaker of the House of Delegates Kirk Cox, is a Republican who won his position thanks to a coin toss in a tied race that gave Republicans control of the chamber.
