Ralph Northam

Ralph Shearer Northam (born September 13, 1959) is an American physician and former politician who served as the 73rd governor of Virginia from 2018 to 2022.^[1] A pediatric neurologist by occupation, he was an officer in the U.S. Army Medical Corps from 1984 to 1992. Northam, a member of the Democratic Party, served as the 40th lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2014 to 2018 before winning the governorship against the Republican nominee Ed Gillespie in the 2017 election.^[2] Prohibited by the Virginia Constitution from running for a consecutive term, Northam left office in January 2022 and was succeeded by the Republican Glenn Youngkin.^[3]

As governor, Northam's most notable accomplishments included expanding Medicaid coverage as allowed under the Affordable Care Act, abolishing the death penalty, legalizing marijuana, and raising the minimum wage.^[4] Northam also led the state during the COVID-19 pandemic, where he was the only governor in the United States who was a licensed doctor. Most of the accomplishments of his tenure were overshadowed by the 2019 Virginia political crisis, when it was revealed in early 2019 that he had appeared either in blackface, or in a Ku Klux Klan uniform in one of several racially-charged entries published in his college yearbooks. Despite the scandal and pleas from black leaders to resign, Northam refused to do so and enjoyed wide popularity amongst Virginia voters through the rest of his term in office. Northam's concurrent political "Rebirth" was celebrated in the mainstream media.^[5][6]

Northam is currently a neurologist at the Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk, VA where his clinical interests are epilepsy and neuromuscular disorders.^[7]