RICHMOND, Va. — The political tumult in Virginia widened Thursday as the state Senate’s top Republican faced an onslaught of questions about racist photographs and slurs in a college yearbook that he helped oversee, transforming the Capitol’s nearly week-old crisis into a bipartisan reckoning over personal conduct.

The senator, Thomas Norment, who is the majority leader, was the managing editor of the 1968 Virginia Military Institute yearbook, which included images of students in blackface. Norment called the use of blackface “abhorrent” while pointing out that he did not appear in any of the photographs, and he attributed the sudden unearthing of the yearbook to “those wanting to engulf Republican leaders” in the scandal that has rocked Virginia Democrats.

As Norment sought to defuse the fresh controversy, Lt. Gov. Justin E. Fairfax, a Democrat, faced mounting calls from leading members of his party for an investigation into a woman’s allegation that he sexually assaulted her in 2004. Several high-profile Democrats, including some 2020 presidential candidates and members of Virginia’s congressional delegation, said they believed the woman’s account was credible.

The spiraling developments left Virginia bracing for a sustained stretch of upheaval as fears about the behavior of leading government officials showed little sign of abating. Yet there were also increasing signs that the besieged officials, including Gov. Ralph Northam, who Saturday admitted to using blackface in 1984, and Attorney General Mark Herring, who made a similar acknowledgment Wednesday, would remain in their posts.

On Thursday night, the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, which had not spoken collectively about the allegations against Fairfax or the blackface admission by Herring, issued a statement that may help the attorney general salvage his job. The black lawmakers praised Herring’s “candor” but said “we await further action on his part to reassure the citizens of the Commonwealth of his fitness for leadership.”

Regarding Fairfax, they called the charges against him “troubling” but said that he deserved due process and that they would monitor the matter closely “and act accordingly.”

Northam, who has been out of public view since Sunday, called Fairfax and Herring on Thursday. It was the first conversation between the governor and the lieutenant governor since Saturday.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.