Democratic governor Ralph Northam’s political action committee in the past two months has donated $85,000 to 13 Democratic candidates running for Virginia state office, many of whom had called on the governor to resign after his racist yearbook page surfaced.
Northam became untouchable in February after a picture of a man in blackface standing with a man in a Ku Klux Klan outfit was discovered on his medical school yearbook page. There were bipartisan calls for him to resign and speculation that he’d be unable to help Democrats campaign for control of both the state House and Senate this November.
Many of the candidates who initially distanced themselves from Northam, however, are now accepting his money.
Northam’s The Way Ahead PAC isn’t required to disclose its activity until later this summer, but candidates in next Tuesday’s state legislature primary elections were required to produce pre-primary reports disclosing donations from April 1 to May 31. Eleven House of Delegates candidates and two state Senate candidates were recipients of money from Northam, according to newly available campaign finance data on Virginia Public Access Project. – READ MORE