High school senior unseats incumbent West Virginia state legislator

(Image credit: Facebook/ElectBlair)

last updated 8 January 2015

She was too young to vote for herself, but Saira Blair still ended up beating her rival in the Republican primary for West Virginia House of Delegates District 59, incumbent Larry Kump.

The West Virginia 17-year-old defeated the two-term state delegate, 872-728, The Washington Post reports. During the campaign (in which she spent $4,800), Blair shared on her Facebook page that she is a member of the WV Citizens Defense League and the NRA, and is "pro-family, pro-2nd Amendment, pro-business, pro-jobs, and pro-West Virginia."

She also used her Facebook page to announce she would promote and support conservative fiscal policy for state government and wouldn't do anything to "embarrass" the district, like introducing legislation to sever the area from the rest of West Virginia. "I think I'm fully capable of doing the job, and I don't think it's rocket science by any means — not if you just listen to the people," Blair told the Hagerstown Herald-Mail earlier this week.

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Politics are a family affair for Blair; her father, Craig Blair, is a state senator. In November, Blair will face the Democratic nominee, Layne Diehl, but she's favored to win; The Post says that in 2012, almost two-thirds of the votes in her district went to Mitt Romney. By that time, Blair will have almost one semester down at West Virginia University — and will finally be able to vote for herself.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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