Ralph Northam will “put Virginia first” and resign as governor, a predecessor and friend of the embattled Democrat said on Sunday, two days after the release of a racist photo from a college yearbook pitched the state into chaos.

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“Ralph is a good, decent, moral man and may have made a mistake,” the former Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe told CNN’s State of the Union. “Ralph will put Virginia first and I think he will do so soon.”

The picture is from Northam’s page in a 1984 yearbook from Eastern Virginia Medical School. It shows two men, one in blackface, one dressed as a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and it was released by Big League Politics, a website founded by former employees of the far-right Breitbart News.

On Friday, Northam said he was in the picture although he did not know which man was him. On Saturday, at a press conference in Richmond, he reversed and said he was not in the picture and had never seen the yearbook before its release this week.

He did however voluntarily discuss an instance in the same period in which, he said, he wore shoe polish on his face while winning a dance contest in San Antonio, Texas, dressed as Michael Jackson.

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Northam said he would not quit, and said: “I’m asking for the opportunity to earn your forgiveness.”

A host of national Democratic figures including all the main 2020 presidential contenders had already called for Northam to resign. After the press conference, both of Virginia’s Democratic US senators weighed in. So did Donald Trump.

In a tweet, the president said Northam’s statement that he was not in the picture came “24 hours after apologizing for appearing in the picture and after making the most horrible statement on ‘super’ late-term abortion. Unforgivable!”

Republicans have sought to tie the yearbook controversy to Northam’s support for a state bill that would loosen restrictions on third-trimester abortions. The governor is a pediatric neurologist.

Characteristically, the president also took a shot at the Republican who lost to Northam in November, Ed Gillespie, saying he “must now be thinking Malpractice and Dereliction of Duty with regard to his Opposition Research Staff. If they find that terrible picture before the election, he wins by 20 points!”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Northam’s page in his 1984 Eastern Virginia Medical School yearbook. Photograph: AP

For Northam, the intervention of the influential senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, who at first refrained from calling for his resignation while national figures and Virginia legislators demanded it, was potentially more chilling.

A statement issued with the US representative Bobby Scott said: ​“After we watched his press conference today, we called Governor Northam to tell him that we no longer believe he can effectively serve as governor of Virginia and that he must resign.

“Governor Northam has served the people of the Commonwealth faithfully for many years, but the events of the past 24 hours have inflicted immense pain and irrevocably broken the trust Virginians must have in their leaders. He should step down and allow the Commonwealth to begin healing.”

As of Sunday morning, Northam had not followed their advice.

The Virginia Legislative Black Caucus has called for Northam to be removed if he does not go voluntarily. In an email to the Guardian on Sunday, University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias said such a forcible removal remained unlikely.

“There are two provisions in the Virginia constitution pertaining to removal of the governor from office,” he wrote. “One governs impeachment and is restricted to situations in which a public official offends ‘against the Commonwealth by malfeasance in office, corruption, neglect of duty or other high crimes and misdemeanors’.

“This language and the process are similar to the federal provision [regarding the president] and share the issue of what exactly is an impeachable offense. However, nothing in Northam’s tenure as governor seems to rise to that level. No Virginia governor has been removed by impeachment, and few governors of other states have been.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Justin Fairfax speaks in his office at the capitol in Richmond on Saturday. Photograph: Steve Helber/AP

The other provision, he said, “provides for removal for physical or mental incapacity when the governor is holding office, rather than events occurring decades earlier, so this seems inapplicable now”.

On CNN, McAuliffe also defended Northam over a bizarre moment in his press conference in which he seemed to contemplate demonstrating his version of the “Moonwalk”, Michael Jackson’s signature dance. McAuliffe said the question that prompted it was as inappropriate in such circumstances as Northam’s response.

It has also emerged that a yearbook from Virginia Military Institute listed “Coonman” as a nickname for Northam. Asked if he thought Northam was racist, McAuliffe said he could not answer the question.

Northam’s lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, is only the second African American elected to statewide office in Virginia. Though he spent Friday night preparing to step up as governor, he did not call for Northam to go.

In a statement on Saturday, Fairfax said he was “shocked and saddened” by the picture but was glad Northam, whom he called a friend, had apologised for “actions from his past” that Fairfax could not condone.

Fairfax also told the Washington Post: “I’ve known Ralph for years … We can generally rely on what each other said to be accurate … I can’t speak to what happened to him 30 years ago in medical school.”

Describing the last 24 hours as “eventful”, Fairfax said Northam’s confession about his Michael Jackson costume “obviously was disturbing as well. I think blackface is always wrong. Whatever context it takes place in, it’s never OK.”