"But the governor, already isolated from Virginia’s political leaders, was fast becoming a pariah outside Richmond, too..."

"... after a wave of top Democratic leaders, including most of the contenders for the 2020 presidential nomination, called on him to resign. And the turmoil enveloping the state only grew when, at 2:55 Monday morning, aides to Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, who would succeed Mr. Northam were he to resign, issued an extraordinary statement denying an online report that the lieutenant governor had once committed sexual assault. 'He has never assaulted anyone — ever — in any way, shape or form,' said two of Mr. Fairfax’s top staff members. They were responding to an accusation published late Sunday that in 2004 he sexually assaulted a woman while at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. Mr. Fairfax’s aides — his chief of staff, Lawrence Roberts, and his communications director, Lauren Burke — said The Washington Post had investigated the claims around the time of the lieutenant governor’s inauguration last year but did not publish an article. The Post published a story Monday explaining its decision...."

From "Virginia Capitol Thrown Into Chaos as Pressure on Northam Intensifies" NYT.

Here's that WaPo article, "Va. Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax denies sex assault allegation from 2004":

The woman approached The Post after Fairfax won election in November 2017 and before he was inaugurated in January 2018, saying she felt like she had an obligation to speak out... Fairfax and the woman told different versions of what happened in the hotel room with no one else present. The Washington Post could not find anyone who could corroborate either version. The Post did not find “significant red flags and inconsistencies within the allegations,” as the Fairfax statement incorrectly said....

The woman described a sexual encounter that began with consensual kissing and ended with a forced act that left her crying and shaken. She said Fairfax guided her to the bed, where they continued kissing, and then at one point she realized she could not move her neck. She said Fairfax used his strength to force her to perform oral sex.

The Washington Post, in phone calls to people who knew Fairfax from college, law school and through political circles, found no similar complaints of sexual misconduct against him. Without that, or the ability to corroborate the woman’s account — in part because she had not told anyone what happened — The Washington Post did not run a story.

She said she never told anyone about what happened at the time or in the years that followed until shortly before she approached The Post. The Post reached out to the woman again Monday and she has not returned messages....

Fairfax waiting in the wings is no longer wonderfully convenient for Democrats. I picture Northam waiting this out and surviving. I expect all those presidential candidates to just shut up about the embarrassing Virginia situation and move on to something else, and I expect Republicans to get back to super-late-term abortions.