Democrat Mat Anderson wins WV House District 50 seat, formerly held by Pritt

A Democrat will fill the West Virginia House of Delegates seat formerly held by disgraced former Republican lawmaker Elliott Pritt.

Mat Anderson won House District 50 Tuesday night, beating out independent candidate Tom Louisos, Constitution Party candidate Stacey L. Hensley and two write-in candidates, Republican William Jennings Vest and independent Eric Walton. 

Anderson pulled in more than 51% of the votes cast in the general election.  

“We’ve been running this race — I think we just finished our 14th month of campaigning, so we have excitement,” Anderson said Thursday. “It’s an honor to be the next delegate of House District 50. I know that the last couple of seat sitters haven’t been pristine people, so our whole job is to show what good leaders look like with this house seat flip.”

Pritt resigned from office in July and withdrew from the district 50 race after he was arrested on federal charges for allegedly enticing a minor. Pritt was a public school teacher. According to the criminal complaint, the family of a 15-year-old female reported that the child had been sexually abused by Pritt. Pritt is scheduled to enter a guilty plea to charges next week. 

The Republican Party was not permitted to fill the vacancy on the general election ballot created by Pritt’s withdrawal due to a 2024 state election law. House Bill 4350 prohibits political parties from replacing a nominee late in the election process. The Republican-sponsored legislation went into effect last year.

Pritt was first elected as a Democrat to the House in 2022. He switched to the Republican Party in 2023. 

Prior to Pritt, District 50 was held by former delegate Austin Haynes, who faced allegations of sexual harassment and misusing his position in a 2023 lawsuit.  

In all, 12 seats in the House of Delegates will flip from red to blue this January after Tuesday’s election. Eight of the 12 new Democrats in the House are women. Republicans will still have control of both the House and Senate.

Anderson, a special education teacher and small business owner, said Thursday that during the campaign he knocked on around 2,400 doors, talking to voters. Most shared concerns about cost of living issues, he said. 

Anderson said the campaign process was “the honor of my lifetime.” Most voters were receptive to talking, he said. 

“I just can’t thank everybody enough for coming out to vote,” Anderson said. “This isn’t how I wanted my race to go, but we just plowed forward and we did what we knew how to do, and that was campaign.”