George Wesley Atkinson was a cavalryman, lawyer, politician, judge and scholar who became the tenth governor of West Virginia after running as the candidate of the Republican Party. He also served in the West Virginia House of Delegates, as well as in the United States House of Representatives from West Virginia and ended his career of public service as a United States federal judge of the Court of Claims.
Lewis Ruffner was an American merchant, magistrate, slaveowner and politician who helped found the state of West Virginia. Originally a salt manufacturer in the Kanawha Salines, Ruffner served several terms in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Kanawha County before resigning as he became the company's agent in Louisville, Kentucky, but returned to Virginia in 1857. Although a slaveowner with relatives who fought for the Confederacy, Ruffner became a prominent Unionist, represented Kanawha County during the Wheeling Conventions, initial West Virginia Constitutional Convention, and first West Virginia House of Delegates during the American Civil War. Fellow legislators named him Major General of the state's militia in 1863, but he declined to accept a commission in the Union Army because salt manufacture was also crucial to the war effort. After the war, General Ruffner suffered a debilitating injury trying to avert a mob attack and became known as a mentor of Booker T. Washington, his former houseboy.
Margaret Lee Workman is an American lawyer and a former justice of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. Her 1988 election to the Supreme Court made her the first woman elected to statewide office in West Virginia and first female Justice on the Court.
Natalie E. Tennant is an American politician who served as the Secretary of State of West Virginia from 2009 to 2017. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Tennant was the 2014 Democratic Party nominee for West Virginia's open U.S. Senate seat, which she lost to Republican Shelley Moore Capito. In 2016 she was defeated for re-election by Republican Mac Warner, and left office on January 16, 2017. In a historic win in 2024, Tennant was elected as the first female commissioner on the Kanawha County Commission in its 236 years.
Rhoda Fox Graves was a suffragist, women's rights activist, and early female Republican party politician from St. Lawrence County, New York in the United States. Graves was the first woman to serve in the New York State Senate, the first woman to hold office in both the upper and lower legislative houses in New York State, and the first woman to chair a New York Senate Committee.
Mary Elliott Flanery was an American Progressive Era social reformer, suffragist, politician, and journalist who is best remembered as the first woman elected to the Kentucky General Assembly and first woman elected to a state legislature south of the Mason–Dixon line. Flanery was an advocate for equal rights for women, and actively worked to pass legislation that would give women the right to vote.
Margaret Anne "Peggy" Staggers was a Democratic member of the West Virginia House of Delegates and served as an Assistant Majority Whip. Staggers is an emergency physician.
Douglas John Skaff Jr. is an American politician from the state of West Virginia. Skaff served as a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, most recently representing the 57th district, as a member of the Democratic Party. He has switched to the Republican Party and is running for secretary of state of West Virginia.
Saira Blair is a former politician from Martinsburg, West Virginia, and was the youngest person elected to state or federal office in the United States upon her election in 2014. In November 2014, aged 18, she was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates, representing the 59th district, which is based in the Eastern Panhandle and encompasses portions of Berkeley County and Morgan County. She is a member of the Republican Party.
Samuel Lightfoot Flournoy was an American lawyer and politician in the U.S. state of West Virginia. He was a prominent lawyer in Charleston, where he practiced law for over 50 years. Born in Romney in 1886, Flournoy was the son of West Virginia State Senator Samuel Lightfoot Flournoy. Flournoy was a grandson of Hampshire County Clerk of Court John Baker White and a nephew of West Virginia Attorney General Robert White and West Virginia Fish Commission President Christian Streit White. He was also a relative of Thomas Flournoy, United States Representative from Virginia.
Elizabeth Simpson Drewry was an American politician from the state of West Virginia. In 1950, she became the first African American woman to be elected to the West Virginia Legislature. She served eight terms in the House of Delegates.
Fannie Cobb Carter was an American educator, humanitarian, and activist for school integration in the United States.
Dorothy Shoemaker McDiarmid was a teacher, real estate broker, Quaker activist, and Virginia legislator for nearly 26 years.
The 2020 West Virginia gubernatorial election was held on November 3, 2020, to elect the governor of West Virginia, concurrently with the 2020 U.S. presidential election, as well as elections to the United States Senate, elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections.
Mary Aydelotte Rice Marshall was an American civic activist, housewife and Democratic politician who represented Arlington, Virginia in the Virginia General Assembly for more than twenty years.
Pauline Menes (1924–2009) served in the Maryland House of Delegates for 40 years. In the 1970s she co-founded the Maryland Women's Legislative Caucus, the first caucus of its kind in the United States; founded the Women's Network of the National Conference of State Legislatures; and was the first woman to serve on the state Judiciary Committee. Over the years she helped pass more than 2,000 bills and policy changes. She was inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame in 2008.
Gladys Brown Keating was an American civic activist, military spouse and Democratic politician who lived in Fairfax County, Virginia, for 45 years, during 22 of which she represented the 43rd district in the Virginia General Assembly (1978-2000).
Lenna Lowe Yost, president of the West Virginia Equal Suffrage Association (WVESA) during the state woman suffrage referendum campaign of 1916 and chairman of the WVESA Ratification Committee during the national amendment ratification campaign of 1920. Yost was at the time also the state president of the West Virginia Woman's Christian Temperance Union, thus being the only woman in the nation to serve as both president of temperance and of the suffrage club at the same time. Yost was the first woman to be appointed to the state Board of Education, and the first woman to chair the West Virginia Republic Party convention.
Anna Beulah Boyd Ritchie was a founding member of the Fairmont Woman Suffrage Club, third president of the West Virginia Equal Suffrage Association, and officer in the West Virginia Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
Danielle Walker is an American politician and community activist, who served as a Democratic member of the West Virginia House of Delegates from 2018 until her resignation in 2023. Through her tenure, Walker was the only Black woman serving in the West Virginia Legislature. In June 2022, Walker was elected vice chair of the West Virginia Democratic Party, she later resigned as vice chairwoman after her selection as the leader of the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia.
