Wheeling attorney Teresa Toriseva will be Del. on Saturday. Replacing Mike Pushkin in the election as chairman of the state party. (West Virginia Legislative Photography and Courtesy Photo)
Members of the West Virginia State Democratic Executive Committee will meet Saturday in Charleston to elect a chairman and other party leaders.
Wheeling attorney Teresa Toriseva, currently the party’s first vice chair, announced earlier this week that she would challenge party chair Mike Pushkin, a delegate who represents Kanawha County, in the election for chair.
Sam Petsonk, a Charleston and Oak Hill attorney and the party’s second vice chairman, will run for first vice chairman. Former state delegate Del. Cindy Lavender Bowe will run as the party’s second deputy leader. The three announced their candidacies in a joint statement from Toriseva’s law firm.
“The public is demanding a reformed and revitalized Democratic Party, and the party must urgently meet these demands,” the press release said. “It is not enough to fill vacancies for Democratic candidates; the Democratic Party and its leader must work to help these candidates win, including raising sufficient resources and ensuring transparency and collaboration. Under the current leader, the Democratic Party has lost seats in the West Virginia House of Representatives and Senate. The party must grow and be ready to win seats in the Capitol in November.”
On Thursday, Pushkin, who has been chairman since 2022, agreed that Toriseva and all other members of the committee had the right to run for chairmanship, but said the party had much to be proud of in recent years.
“I think that in recent years we have achieved many achievements that we can be proud of, especially in the creation of many districts where there were no district committees,” Pushkin said. “And then we did these candidate recruiting calls that lasted almost a year. These weekly candidate recruiting calls where we worked with these networks across the state to help identify great candidates across the ballot, and it worked.”
At least 125 Democrats have filed for a seat in the state legislature this year, along with others who have filed for it Seats at federal and district levels.
The party recruited Democrats to run in red districts of the state, Pushkin said, and offered reimbursement of filing fees to Democratic candidates who ran in an uncontested primary.
“We’ve done a lot of new things in the last few years and it’s really paid off,” he said.
Pushkin said that according to the party’s review of voter turnout during the primaries, Democratic turnout exceeded 37% and was higher than Republican turnout in many districts.
Pushkin pointed to them Choice of Del. Bill Flanigan, R-Ohio, and retired District Judge H.L. Kirkpatrick referred to the state Supreme Court as achievements. The Supreme Court race is nonpartisan, but Flanigan and Kirkpatrick impressed the candidates appointed to the court by Gov. Patrick Morrisey.
“These were the decisions that many people in the Democratic Party had, and our friends in the Labor Party also supported them,” Pushkin said. “So these are the people we voted for, and I think they know, if you ask them, they know it was the Democratic turnout that got them into these seats.”
He also noted the election of Jim Douglas to the Intermediate Court of Appeals.
“The results (of higher Democratic turnout) speak for themselves,” he said. “We flipped the Supreme Court. We now have a three-to-two majority on the Supreme Court and we elected Jim Douglas, a registered Democrat who supported voting and vaccination. We elected him to the Intermediate Court of Appeals, and the race wasn’t even close.”
Toriseva, a candidate for prosecutor general in the 2024 election, did not respond to a message seeking comment on Thursday.
Pushkin said he has no problem with being open and clear in the party election, but ultimately the chairmanship will be determined by a confined number of people – 85 members if everyone attends the meeting.
“It’s kind of strange that this is being brought up on social media and in the press when in reality it’s an executive committee decision,” he said. “But I don’t have a problem. I think it’s a good opportunity to come here and talk about the progress we’ve made and the achievements we should be proud of.”
The Democrats’ meeting is scheduled for Saturday at 3 p.m West Virginia School Service Personnel Association in Charleston. The meeting will be broadcast online at wvdemocrats.com/live.
