Kris Warner, the executive director of the West Virginia Economic Development Authority, won the Republican primary for Secretary of State on Tuesday, May 14, 2024. (Courtesy photo)
Kris Warner, director of the state Economic Development Authority, will be West Virginia’s next secretary of state.
Warner, a Republican and brother to outgoing secretary of state Mac Warner, won the general election over Democrat opponent Thornton Cooper, a South Charleston attorney.
The Associated Press called the race for Warner at 8:46 p.m. Tuesday, when Warner had pulled in about 70% of the votes that had been counted, compared to Cooper’s 30%, according to unofficial results.
Mac Warner is among Republicans who have denied the results of the 2020 election, which then President Donald Trump lost to President Joe Biden. Asked if he shared the same views as his brother, Kris Warner told West Virginia Watch in May the election was not stolen in West Virginia, but he was “not in a position to talk” about whether it was stolen in other states.
Warner handily beat his Republican opponents in the May primary election, despite being outspent, something he attributed then to his more than three decades of experience with the state Republican Party, including five years as the party chair.
Warner’s campaign against primary election opponent Doug Skaff, a former Democrat, was promoted by the Conservative Policy Action, a federally registered political action committee.
Mark Scott, the state’s former Administration Secretary, resigned in July after serving in that role and as chairman of the PAC for months, according to reporting by West Virginia MetroNews. Reporting by the Charleston Gazette-Mail found heavy ties between the PAC and beneficiaries of the Economic Development Authority. He did not respond to the newspaper’s request for comment at the time.
Another of Kris Warner’s opponents in the primary, Ken Reed filed a complaint asking the secretary of state’s office to investigate the ties. A spokesman for the secretary of state’s office said state law prohibits the office from confirming the existence of an investigation into an election complaint or an outcome.
As of mid-October, Warner had outraised Cooper $157,000 to $22,000, according to campaign finance reports.
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