Charlotte Pritt

Charlotte Jean Pritt (born January 2, 1949) is an American educator, businesswoman, and politician in the U.S. state of West Virginia.

From 1984 to 1988, she served in the West Virginia House of Delegates, representing Kanawha County.

From 1988 to 1992, she served in the West Virginia State Senate.

She ran unsuccessfully for West Virginia governor in 1992, 1996 and 2016 and for West Virginia Secretary of State in 2000.

Prior to entering politics, Pritt, the daughter of a coal miner, worked as a high school English teacher and a college professor.

During the span of her educational career, she served as director of communications at Kanawha County Schools and director of the West Virginia Writing Project at the West Virginia College of Graduate Studies.

She had also served as an independent marketer and president of the Charleston office for SteelOaks/Acorn Investments and formerly owned Pritt Associates.

When elected to the West Virginia State Legislature, she directed two federal education grants and the National Writing Program in West Virginia.

Pritt ran for governor as a Democrat in the primary election in 1992, but lost to Gaston Caperton.

She gained notoriety initially by challenging then-Governor Caperton on his grocery and gasoline taxes and opposition to collective bargaining.

She also managed to garner strong union support.

Even so, Caperton had outspent Pritt 10 to 1 and defeated her in the primary, 42.68 to 36.45 percent.

West Virginia attorney general Mario Palumbo came in third, with 20.1 percent.

After losing the Democratic primary to Caperton, Pritt refused to endorse her opponent and mounted an independent write-in bid for governor in the general election.

This action led to a splinter in the state's party establishment.

Pritt garnered 12.4 percent in the race, in which Caperton defeated Republican Cleve Benedict, 51 to 36.6 percent.

Pritt ran as a Democrat for governor and defeated future governor and U.S. Senator Joe Manchin in the primary, 39.5 to 32.6 percent.

She was the first woman to secure the West Virginia gubernatorial nomination of either of the two major political parties and gained the endorsement of then President Bill Clinton.

During the primary, Manchin had attempted to portray her as "anti-gun", which Pritt denied by stating she owned a shotgun and being a 12-year member of the National Rifle Association of America (NRA) at that time.

After the primary, a group known as "Democrats for Underwood", which consisted of West Virginia Democrats who refused to back her in the general election.

Pritt dismissed the defections as coming from Democratic officials "who would be Republicans in any other state anyway".

Further complicating matters, the National Senate Republican Committee (NSRC) and West Virginia State Victory Committee funded a television ad campaign against Pritt falsely accusing her of voting for a bill that would allow children to access pornography and proposing to teach first graders about condom use, among others.

Underwood distanced himself from the negative ads.

Political opponents had additionally attempted to paint her as "flaky" and "a little off the wall" by alleging that her mother had dabbled in fortune-telling.

Pritt lost in the general election to Republican Cecil Underwood, 51.6 to 48.5 percent.

While she sued the NSRC after the election, it was ruled that too much time had passed for it to have caused harm to Pritt.

Pritt called on her former opponent Underwood to testify during her suit.

Her nomination was particularly ground-breaking because only 20 of the 134 West Virginia legislators were women in 1996, and per the U.S. Census Bureau, fewer women hold jobs in West Virginia than any other state.

A study published in 1999 in the Journal of Women, Politics & Policy found that the press coverage surrounding her and Mary Sue Terry's gubernatorial campaigns had been negative, albeit primarily based on issues aside from gender.

Even still, none of the state's major newspapers endorsed her campaign.

Pritt ran for West Virginia Secretary of State in 2000, losing the Democratic primary to Manchin, 41.1 to 32.9 percent.

After the election, she returned to educational pursuits and studied for a degree in nutrition.

From 2012 to 2014, she was chairwoman of the Mountain Party, which is the Green Party's state branch affiliate for West Virginia.

Pritt was nominated as the Mountain Party's candidate for West Virginia governor on July 16, 2016, at the party's convention.

Rev. Jim Lewis, who was previously expected to get the nod, got sidelined by knee surgery.

On Bray Cary's statewide show Decision Makers, Pritt called her billionaire Democratic gubernatorial opponent Jim Justice a "Republican".

In response, West Virginia Democratic Party chairwoman Belinda Biafore allegedly signed and sent out a letter to an electronic mailing list claiming that the GOP had adopted Pritt, that the Republicans were funding her campaign, and that "a vote for Pritt is a vote for Cole" (a reference to Bill Cole, the GOP nominee).

Pritt called the unsubstantiated accusations a "blindfaced lie" and instead argued that a vote for her is a vote against the "conservative status quo".

Pritt was not invited to the debate between the Republican and Democratic nominees.

She finished third in the general election, receiving nearly 14% of the vote, behind Justice (the winner) and Cole.