Rep. Carol Miller (R-W.Va.) speaks during a House Select Committee on Climate Crisis hearing on June 14, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Nathan Howard | Getty Images)
Carol Miller will continue serving the first district of West Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives, according to unofficial election results released Tuesday evening.
The Associated Press called the race for Miller at 8:36 p.m.
As of 9 p.m., with 40% of votes counted in the state, Miller so far has received 69.8% of votes. That’s compared to the 6.3% won by independent candidate Wes Holden and the 23.8% of votes earned by Democrat Chris Bob Reed.
In a statement from her campaign after her win was announced, Miller said her next term in office will focus on several issues that have become central to conservative ideals: “securing” the nation’s southern border, increasing domestic energy production, lowering taxes and health care reform.
“I am honored to have won the election in West Virginia’s First District. Serving the southern half of West Virginia for the past six years has been an honor that I do not take lightly, and I will continue to enact policies that put West Virginians and Americans first,” the statement read. “Thank you to the voters for your confidence in sending me back to Washington D.C. God bless West Virginia, and God bless the United States of America.”
The race was one of the few in the state to feature an independent candidate. A longtime staffer for former Gov. and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat, Holden ran his campaign as a challenger of the two-party system. He received endorsements from numerous labor unions in the state as well as progressive policy groups.
Reed was largely inactive for the election, never launching a campaign website. According to the Federal Election Commission, there have been no financial statements filed by Reed for this election. He has not participated in election surveys or questionnaires put out by media organizations.
Miller served more than a decade in the state House of Delegates as a Republican before being elected in 2018 to the U.S. House of Representatives, where she has served ever since.
She won her primary in May against Derrick Evans, a fellow Republican who resigned from his position in the state legislature just two months after being elected because of his participation in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. In 2022, a grand jury indicted Evans on five counts related to the Jan. 6 insurrection, and he later pleaded guilty to a felony charge for civil disorder. He served almost three months in prison for the charge.
Miller is a staunch conservative and vocal Trump supporter. She was one of 147 Republicans in Congress, who voted in 2021 to overturn the election of President Joe Biden due to allegations of fraud. Those allegations have been proven false.