Gov. Ralph Northam is fighting to hold on to power here in Virginia, and a senior adviser to the Democrat tells CNN the governor is emotional over the controversy but cognizant that the situation is changing rapidly.
“The situation changes hour by hour and he is taking stock of everything,” said the Northam adviser.
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The adviser described the time as “emotionally painful” for the governor as he tries to determine whether he is able to rehabilitate his image while the controversy over a racist photo on the governor’s yearbook page, showing one person in blackface and another dressed in the Ku Klux Klan’s signature white hood and robes, continues to play out.
Northam, the adviser said, is well aware that, should he resign, he would be the first governor of Virginia to do so and believes that a decision of this magnitude “merits time.”
The governor spent Monday behind closed doors, begging his Cabinet members to give him the chance to prove he was not the person pictured in the racist photo that surfaced Friday.
Northam oversaw a regularly scheduled Cabinet meeting Monday morning that a source inside the meeting described as “solemn.
