West Virginia Secretary of State election, 2024

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West Virginia Secretary of State
	Democratic primary; Republican primary; General election;
Election details
	Filing deadline: January 27, 2024
	Primary: May 14, 2024; General: November 5, 2024; Pre-election incumbent(s):; Mac Warner (R)
How to vote
	Poll times: 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.; Voting in West Virginia
Ballotpedia analysis
	Federal and state primary competitiveness; State executive elections in 2024; Impact of term limits in 2024; State government trifectas; State government triplexes; Ballotpedia's Election Analysis Hub, 2024
West Virginia; executive elections
	Governor; Attorney General; Secretary of State; Auditor; Treasurer; Agriculture Commission

West Virginia 2024 elections

U.S. Senate • U.S. House • Governor • Attorney General • Secretary of State • State executive offices • State Senate • House of Delegates • Supreme court • Appellate courts • State ballot measures • How to run for office

West Virginia held an election for secretary of state on November 5, 2024. The primary was May 14, 2024. The filing deadline was January 27, 2024.

The West Virginia Secretary of State oversees the state's election process, including voter registration and election results reporting. For more on election administration legislation in West Virginia, click here.

Kris Warner won election in the general election for West Virginia Secretary of State.

For more information about the primaries in this election, click on the links below:

Candidates and election results

General election

General election for West Virginia Secretary of State

Kris Warner defeated Thornton Cooper in the general election for West Virginia Secretary of State on November 5, 2024.

	Candidate	%	Votes
✔	Kris Warner (R)	71.1	510,992
	Thornton Cooper (D)	28.9	207,238

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 718,230
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
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Democratic primary election

Democratic primary for West Virginia Secretary of State

Thornton Cooper advanced from the Democratic primary for West Virginia Secretary of State on May 14, 2024.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Thornton Cooper	100.0	82,262

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 82,262
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Republican primary election

Republican primary for West Virginia Secretary of State

Kris Warner defeated Douglas Skaff, Jr., Ken Reed, and Brian Wood in the Republican primary for West Virginia Secretary of State on May 14, 2024.

	Candidate	%	Votes
✔	Kris Warner	45.9	92,911
	Douglas Skaff, Jr.	21.0	42,515
	Ken Reed	16.8	34,101
	Brian Wood	16.3	33,083

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 202,610
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team.

Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey responses

Ballotpedia asks all federal, state, and local candidates to complete a survey and share what motivates them on political and personal levels. The section below shows responses from candidates in this race who completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

Survey responses from candidates in this race

Click on a candidate's name to visit their Ballotpedia page.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

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Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

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Thornton Cooper (D)

I want to make it easy for West Virginians to vote in either of 3 ways: (1) If a registered voter wants to vote by mail, he or she should be able to do so without having to give a reason for voting by mail. (2) If a registered voter wants to vote early in person at a designated polling place, he or she should have that choice. (3) If a registered voter wants to vote at his or her local precinct on Election Day, he or she should still have that choice.

We need to protect our election workers from harassment and intimidation.

The West Virginia Secretary of State, in conjunction with other state officials, should make it easy for someone to form a corporation or limited liability company and to start a business.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

Thornton Cooper (D)

I want to make it easier, not more difficult, for a registered voter to cast a vote in West Virginia.

What do you believe are the core responsibilities for someone elected to this office?

Thornton Cooper (D)

(1) The most important responsibility of the West Virginia Secretary of State is to serve as the Chief Election Officer of West Virginia. Without free and fair elections, our democratic experiment will not work.

The Secretary of State should display integrity, experience, and competence. For example, the Secretary of State should not let his or her party affiliation affect how he or she rules in a controversy between a candidate of one party and a candidate of another party.

Furthermore, the Secretary of State needs to give proper deference to each of West Virginia's 55 County Clerks. In each county, the County Clerk is the county's chief election officer. The Secretary of State should not attempt to micromanage how each County Clerk does his or her job.

(2) The Secretary of State also should work to make it easier for West Virginians and other individuals to form corporations and limited liability companies. Working with other state officials, the Secretary of State should make it easier for individuals to start businesses.

(3) The Secretary of State also has extensive responsibilities relating to the proper filing of rules adopted by the various state agencies. In many cases, the West Virginia Legislature has to approve an agency's rule before it can take effect.

(4) The Secretary of State also has additional responsibilities, such as the regulation of notaries public.

What is the first historical event that happened in your lifetime that you remember? How old were you at the time?

Thornton Cooper (D)

The first significant historical event that I remember was the election of John F. Kennedy as President of the United States on Tuesday, November 8, 1960.

I was just 10 years old.

My parents were Democrats who were strong supporters of JFK. For Election Day, my mother decorated our dining and living rooms with some red, white, and blue symbols, and, as I recall, also a donkey and an elephant. I believe that we might have even owned a "PT 109" tie clip to celebrate Kennedy's heroic naval service during World War II.

John F. Kennedy had a strong connection with West Virginians. Although my parents were Protestants, our family thought that people in our state who opposed Kennedy because he was a Roman Catholic were ignorant. Kennedy's defeat of Hubert Humphrey in the 1960 Democratic primary election was cited by the national media as evidence that a Catholic could defeat a Protestant. (Actually, though, West Virginia Democrats had supported Roman Catholic Al Smith back in the 1928 Democratic primary.)

My parents invited another couple, who attended the same Baptist church in Charleston that we attended, over to our house in South Charleston to watch the election returns on the black and white TV in our living room. On Election Night, I used red and blue colored pencils to draw on a white poster the following characters: Uncle Sam, John F. Kennedy, and a donkey. On that poster, I added the following sentence: "Let Democrats do it for you."

In terms of the popular vote, the race between JFK and Richard Nixon turned out to be very close. The results in the Electoral College were also in doubt. Our neighbors returned home long before the networks finally called the election.

Although he was assassinated in 1963, John F. Kennedy motivated millions of young Americans to go into politics and government.

I am one of them.

Past elections

The section below details election results for this office in elections dating back to 2012.