Saira Blair is a 17 year old high school senior in Martinsburg, West Virginia. She will be attending West Virginia University in the fall. And in the primary on Tuesday, May 13th, she was elected to be the Republican candidate for a seat in the State House of Delegates, West Virginia’s legislature.
Blair beat her two-term, 66-year-old Republican opponent, the incumbent, by about 154 votes. She ran a positive campaign, based on conservative values. If she wins the election in the fall, she will be the youngest legislator in West Virginia history.
Blair knows that it is important to get the economy going and to create jobs. She wants to help the state become more business-friendly, in order to enable the private sector to create more jobs. To that end, she has a long list of taxes that she wants to see eliminated or reduced. These include “lowering the corporate net tax, eliminating the business franchise tax, and eliminating the tax on equipment and machinery.”
According to Blair, her win showed that people don’t have to wait until they are in their 40s or 50s to realize that “conservative principles are beneficial to everyone.” Her direct approach emphasizing conservative values and lower taxes appealed to the primary voters of West Virginia.
If elected, she intends to take the views of the people of her district to the legislature. She will also skip her spring semester in order to attend to her legislative duties.
This 17-year-old has exhibited remarkable perspective in getting right to the core of voters’ overriding concerns – the economy and job growth. She also understands that eliminating taxes, particularly those that discourage business growth, is the pathway to economic success. Evidently, it’s a winning message with voters too. Hopefully, she’ll continue to support growing momentum away from income taxes towards consumption taxes as a stepping stone on that pathway.