Alan Blinder, Jonathan Martin and Trip Gabriel

<h1>RICHMOND, Va. — The besieged Democratic governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, began to emerge from his defensive crouch Tuesday, and signaled through his diminished corps of allies that he believed he could remain in office and, perhaps, prove that he did not appear in a racist photograph more than 30 years ago.</h1>

The governor, whose power has been on the verge of collapse since the photograph surfaced Friday, intends to hire a private investigator to examine the circumstances of the picture, according to a Democrat familiar with his plans. The image appeared on Northam’s medical school yearbook page and showed a person dressed in blackface and another in a Ku Klux Klan robe.

And Northam’s supporters have begun to express increased confidence that he will hold on to his job, despite a national onslaught of condemnation, in part because the Republicans who control the General Assembly have little demonstrated urgency toward seeking his ouster.

“No matter the veracity of the photo in question, a man who has devoted his entire life to the service of others should have the opportunity to clear his name,” state Sen. Richard Stuart, a Republican who is close to Northam, said in a statement of support. “People who have been elected to represent Virginians should have the courage to say what is self-evident to so many people — that poor judgment 34 years ago should not outweigh a selfless service to people from every walk of life.”

But support from figures like Stuart hardly spells an end to Northam’s political troubles. As lawmakers gathered Tuesday for one of the busiest days of their legislative session, their votes and debates played out alongside the convergence of two chaotic developments: Northam’s determination to stay in office despite widespread calls from within his party to step down, and the newly strained relationship between the governor and Justin Fairfax, the lieutenant governor.

What it will all mean in the end is less clear.

“I was a longtime high school history teacher,” R. Lee Ware, a Republican legislator, said in the Rotunda on Tuesday after he was asked whether he anticipated that Northam would remain governor. “I do history. I don’t do prophecy.”

That was perhaps the safest route through a political landscape convulsed by the photograph in Northam’s yearbook, and an allegation that Fairfax, also a Democrat, had sexually assaulted a woman in 2004. Fairfax has openly sowed suspicions that the revival of the charge was a well-timed act of political skulduggery.

But if the governor’s office seemed Tuesday to shift toward a limited form of offense — his staff helped arrange a letter from nine medical school classmates saying they did not believe Northam had “ever engaged in, promoted, tolerated, or condoned racism” — lawmakers, and even the Democratic Party of Virginia, were notably cautious in their support for Fairfax. The lieutenant governor has vehemently denied the woman’s claims that he assaulted her.

In a statement, the state party said: “All allegations of sexual assault deserve to be taken with profound gravity. We will continue to evaluate the situation regarding Lieutenant Governor Fairfax.”

If both Northam and Fairfax ultimately stay in office through the end of their terms, their relationship, already marked by perceived slights and a wide disparity in their authority, will face a test just as Democrats believe they stand on the brink of a sweeping return to power in Virginia.

The rupture in the uneasy peace between the commonwealth’s top two Democrats is all the more striking because of the unity the party has enjoyed over the past decade.

Although Fairfax last year celebrated Northam’s birthday on Instagram and hailed him as “#GreatGovernor” and “#BestGovernor,” he and the governor were already deep into divergent approaches to politics and policy. And the low-key Northam, a pediatrician who often evokes a doctor’s soothing bedside manner, and the outspoken Fairfax, a powerful orator, are temperamentally very different.

So are their backgrounds, representing two poles of Virginia: the traditionalist Northam, who attended Virginia Military Institute, and the meritocratic newcomer Fairfax, who went to Duke on a scholarship; the conservative rural Eastern Shore of Northam’s roots, and the urban northeast Washington neighborhood where Fairfax grew up; and most basically of all, in a state that has gone a long way to mend its tortured racial history, white and black.

Northam and Fairfax often made common cause of their differences. They appeared together on the campaign trail during the 2013 Democratic primary, when they shared each other’s demographic bases: black voters in Richmond and Tidewater Virginia, as well as liberal whites in Northern Virginia.

Northam became lieutenant governor and Fairfax, a virtually unknown first-time candidate, nearly won an upset in the primary for attorney general. “They had a very warm relationship in 2013,” said Ben Tribbett, a Democratic strategist in the state.

Four years later, with Northam running for governor and Fairfax for lieutenant governor, they were still a hand-in-glove duo, at least at the start. At the time, an aide to Northam called Susan Platt, a primary challenger to Fairfax, and urged her to drop out, Platt said in an interview. A woman could not defeat an African-American in a Democratic primary, the aide said, according to Platt.

In Virginia, candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run separately, rather than on a ticket, and as the 2017 race developed, strains developed between the men, according to three Democratic consultants with wide experience in Virginia.

The tensions broke into the open just before the 2017 election when Northam’s campaign omitted Fairfax from a piece of campaign literature.

Fairfax’s supporters saw subtle racism in the omission, which had been requested by a labor union that was handing out the flyers and had not endorsed Fairfax.

People close to the Northam campaign were privately furious that Fairfax went public with criticism of Northam — he called it a “mistake” by the Northam team — so close to the balloting, rather than resolving the issue quietly.

Democratic operatives in Virginia who support Northam drew a connection between Fairfax’s actions then and over the past 48 hours, when he seemed to point fingers at fellow Democrats for surfacing the accusation of sexual misconduct against him, just as he might be elevated to the commonwealth’s top office.

Fairfax first insinuated that Northam, with whom he has not spoken since Saturday, or the governor’s allies could be responsible. Fairfax later stepped back from those claims and shifted his suspicions toward Mayor Levar Stoney of Richmond, a potential opponent for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2021.

(Stoney denied any role in spreading the allegations about Fairfax, and a clear-the-air call between the men Monday night did not go well. According to Stoney and someone close to Fairfax who was present for the call, the lieutenant governor hung up on the mayor when the conversation grew heated.)

Now the mistrust between high-ranking Democrats is starting to recall the last period when the party enjoyed such dominance in the state: the 1980s and early 1990s. That was when a pair of moderates with national aspirations, Charles S. Robb and L. Douglas Wilder, clashed bitterly and the party was divided between those loyal to the two former governors.

But neither Robb nor Wilder was as politically wounded as Northam or as vulnerable as Fairfax is now.

Northam has mostly stayed out of public view since Saturday, when, a day after he apologized “for the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo,” he held a news conference to deny appearing in the photograph.

Virginia Democrats are already preparing for contingencies in case the two men are unable to fulfill their fundraising duties as titular head of the state party; senior officials are telling Sen. Tim Kaine and former Gov. Terry McAuliffe that they will have to step in to fill the void, according to a Democrat familiar with the conversations.

In the meantime, Richmond has been left to wonder when or whether there might be another volley between Northam and Fairfax, further imperiling their ties and their party’s prospects.

“They had a respectful partnership and a high regard for each other,” said Susan Swecker, the state Democratic Party chairwoman. “That’s what makes our party so great, how diverse it is. And that’s what makes this so sad.”

This article originally appeared in <a id="88338b79-9b6a-45fe-94ef-97dfd0801a47" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/05/us/politics/northam-fairfax-virginia-governor.html">The New York Times</a>.

Northam Seeks Signs of Support as Crisis Strains Virginia Leadership

The governor, whose power has been on the verge of collapse since the photograph surfaced Friday, intends to hire a private investigator to examine the circumstances of the picture, according to a Democrat familiar with his plans.

Northam seeks signs of support as crisis strains Virginia leadership

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Alan Blinder, Jonathan Martin and Trip Gabriel

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Northam seeks signs of support as crisis strains Virginia leadership