Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax Joins Black Women in Governor’s Race

Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax announced last Thursday that he formally kicked off his campaign for governor and events over the past weekend. This comes only a year after facing two high profile allegations of sexual assault.

What We Know:

• Fairfax delivered a campaign speech at the Old Court House in Fairfax, Virginia, and has been encouraging his followers to head to early voting. There are currently three Black Democrats seeking the party’s 2021 nomination to the governor’s house, which includes Fairfax. The other two are Jennifer McClellan, an experienced Black politician who is serving her first term in the state Senate, and Jennifer Carroll Foy, another Black woman serving her second term in the state House.

Early voting starts Friday! #Virginia pic.twitter.com/EAOeJ5HYjC

— Justin Fairfax (@FairfaxJustin) September 15, 2020

• With this roster of candidates in the mix for the nomination, it should be interesting to see who ultimately wins the gubernatorial race in November 2021. Regardless of who wins, that candidate will be the second Black governor in Virginia’s history.
• The person would also be the third Black person ever elected governor in U.S. history, a title Stacey Abrams could have held years earlier but lost to the current governor of Georgia Brian Kemp. Should Foy or McClellan win in Virginia, they would be the first Black woman to do so in American history.
• Historically, the two previous governors were Douglas Wilder, a Democrat elected as Virginia’s first Black governor in 1989, and Deval Patrick, another Democrat elected as Massachusetts Black governor in 2006.
• Moreover, other instances where a Black person held the position was Democrat David Patterson taking over as New York state governor in 2018 following the resignation of Gov. Eliot Spitzer. During the Reconstruction Era, Republican P. B. S. Pinchback was sworn in as the first Black governor in U.S. history to serve the remainder of the previously impeached Louisiana Gov. Henry Warmoth‘s term.
• Fairfax received heavy backlash from other Democrats earlier last year when two women, Meredith Watson and Vanessa Tyson, came out to accuse him of sexual assault. Watson attended Duke University with Fairfax and claimed he raped her in 2000. California professor Tyson, on the other hand, said that Fairfax forced her to perform oral sex at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Boston in 2004.

Fairfax has since denied any and all allegations. He referred to these claims as a part of an attempt at ending his political career. He told the Associated Pressed that “the voters are incredibly smart. They see through this kind of destructive, politically motivated kind of politics. And they are ready to move to higher ground.”