Ralph Shearer Northam is an American politician and physician serving as the 73rd Governor of Virginia since January 13, 2018. Northam, a member of the Democratic Party, served as the 40th Lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2014 to 2018 prior to winning the governorship against Republican nominee Ed Gillespie in the 2017 election. His great-great-grandfather, James, who along with his son, Levi Jacob, had owned slaves – one of whom, Raymond, was freed to enlist in the 9th Regiment of Colored Troops.
About Ralph Northam in brief
Ralph Shearer Northam is an American politician and physician serving as the 73rd Governor of Virginia since January 13, 2018. 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 prior to winning the governorship against Republican nominee Ed Gillespie in the 2017 election. His great-great-grandfather, James, who along with his son, Levi Jacob, had owned slaves – one of whom, Raymond, was freed to enlist in the 9th Regiment of Colored Troops. Ralph Northam was unaware of his family’s slave-owning history until his father conducted research into their ancestry during the time of Northam’s gubernatorial campaign. His father served as a lawyer and is a veteran of World War II; he entered politics in the 1960s, serving three terms as Commonwealth’s Attorney for Accomack County, Virginia. His mother, Nancy B. Shearer, was originally from Washington, D. C., and her father was a surgeon. Nancy Shearer died in 2009, and Northam grew up on a water-side farm in Onancock, Virginia, where his class was predominately African American. As a teenager, Northam worked on a ferry to Tangier Island and as a deckhand on fishing charters. He and his older brother of two years, Thomas, were raised on a seventy-five-acre property.
He was voted ‘Most Likely to Succeed’ in high school and graduated as salutatorian. He went on to Eastern Virginia Medical School, earning his M. D. degree in 1984. In 2007, he defeated Republican incumbent Nick Rerras, a defense contractor, 17,307 to 14,499 votes to win the Democratic nomination for the 6th Senate district, which includes the Eastern Shore of Virginia Mathews County, on the Middle Peninsula; and parts of Norfolk and Virginia Beach. In 2011, he defeating Ben Loyola Jr., a contractor who was unopposed for the Democratic nominees for the Virginia House of Delegates. In 2012, he won re-election to the Senate 6th district, defeating Republican Nick Lerras 17,499 to 14,.499 votes. In 2013, he defeated Republican Nick Rotheras, two-term incumbent, 17-307 to 13,499. In 2014, he defeated Republican incumbent Ben Loyol Jr. 17-499 to 12,307 votes to gain the Democratic nomination for the Virginia House of Delegates for the 6th District of Virginia. In 2014, he lost the Democratic nominee for the Virginia House of Delegate to Richard Barrasso, a contractor who was unopposed by himself. In the 2014 general election, Ralph Northam was re-elected to the House of Delegates on November 6, 2014.
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This page is based on the article Ralph Northam published in Wikipedia (as of Jan. 07, 2021) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
