Republican strategist Holly Turner said on Monday that blackface scandals and sexual assault allegations surrounding Virginia’s top three Democratic elected officials have turned the commonwealth purple.
“Virginia just got purple,” Turner, who is the CEO of Stampede Consulting, told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton during a panel discussion on “Rising.”
Turner said she doesn’t think Gov. Ralph Northam (D), Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax (D) or Attorney General Mark Herring (D) will resign, despite numerous calls for them to step down from both state and national Democrats, adding that there could be an impact on the party in future elections.
The Republican strategist noted that former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton won the state by almost 40,000 votes.
“If you combine Trump’s votes with Gary Johnson and Evan [McMullin], she only won by 40,000 votes,” Turner told Hill.TV.
Earlier this month, a photo emerged from Northam’s 1984 medical school yearbook page showing two individuals, one in blackface and the other in a Ku Klux Klan robe. Though the governor initially apologized for the racist photo, he has since denied that he was one of the two men in question. He did acknowledge that he once wore blackface to dress up like Michael Jackson, but has made it clear that he does not intend to resign.
Herring also admitted that he wore blackface when he dressed up as rapper Kurtis Blow at a college party 1980.
Meanwhile, a second woman has come forward accusing Fairfax of sexual assault. Meredith Watson said last Friday that Fairfax raped her in 2000 when the two were in college. Stanford Professor Vanessa Tyson earlier had accused the lieutenant governor of forcing her to perform oral sex on him during the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston.
Fairfax has called for an investigation into the allegations and denied any wrongdoing.
Like Northam, he is also resisting calls to resign.
“The one thing I want to make abundantly clear is that in both situations I knew at the time, and I know today, that the interactions were consensual,” Fairfax said in a statement issued last Saturday.
—Tess Bonn
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