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College freshman Saira Blair could become one of the country’s youngest lawmakers in Tuesday's midterm election.
Blair is in the running to represent 18,000 people from West Virginia’s District 59 in the state House of Delegates. At 17 years old, Blair won the Republican primary election against two-term incumbent Larry Kump, drawing a national spotlight to her midterm campaign.
Blair is currently studying economics at West Virginia University. Because West Virginia has a citizen’s legislature that meets for only 60 days between January and April, Blair would be able to continue her education in the fall semesters.
Blair’s father, Craig Blair, is a state senator who served in the West Virginia House of Delegates for eight years. Politics and government were always topics of conversation in their house.
Blair has raised a combined total of about $17,000 for her primary and midterm races, which includes a personal contribution of $3,600 from her college fund. Prior to the midterm election, Blair wrote 4,000 letters to voters in her district, urging them to come to the polls.
Blair knows her conservative politics set her apart from most other millennials, 41 percent of whom are “mostly or consistently liberal,”
according
to a Pew Research Center report.
But she said her campaign is part of an important shift in West Virginia. Both the state Senate and the state House of Delegates (where Blair is running for office) have been majority Democrat for over 80 years, but the state has chosen the Republican candidate for president since 2000.
Blair wants more people to live and work in West Virginia, which has had roughly the same population since 1980. After college, many students leave West Virginia for jobs in other states, draining the state of educated workers. The solution to this problem is to create more jobs in the state and incentivize students to stay, she said.
“I want to be a part of making sure that my generation stays in West Virginia and we help to cultivate economic growth,” she said.
Warm up questions
- What is the difference between state government and national government in the United States? Can you give examples of the different powers they individually control or ones they share?
- The U.S. Constitution requires a person must be at least 35 to be President or Vice President, 30 to be a Senator, or 25 to be a representative and most states in the U.S. also have age requirements for the offices of governor, state senator, and state representative. Why do you think there are age requirements for these political positions? What are the benefits and risks of placing a minimum age requirement on these elected positions?
Critical thinking questions
- Is Saira Blair running for a national or state government position? How do you know? Make sure to cite specific evidence from the text.
- Despite far lower minimum age requirements for the national U.S. government, the average age of members of the House of Representatives at the beginning of the current Congress (113th) was 57 years old and 62 years old for Senators 2 . In West Virginia, the Governor is 62 years old, 44 years older than Saira. What challenges do you think Saira Blair might face because of her age? How might she over come them?
- Political candidates run for many reasons. Saira Blair said, “I wasn’t running because I thought he (the incumbent) was doing a poor job, I was running because I want to represent my generation and I wanted to represent people of Berkeley and Morgan country.” She has also said, “I want to be a part of making sure that my generation stays in West Virginia and we help to cultivate economic growth.” Do you think those are good reasons to run? Do you think people will vote for her based on her commitment to improve the economy in Berkeley and Morgan Counties?
