(LOOTPRESS) – Republican Tom Willis ran a successful campaign which, on Primary Election Day Tuesday resulted in the defeat of State Senate representative for the 15th District and Senate President, Craig Blair.
LOOTPRESS reached out to the candidate to discuss the win, current issues facing the State of West Virginia, and his plans going forward as he prepares to face Democratic candidate Anthony Murray, who secured the nomination following an unopposed campaign.
The conversation can be seen below:
LP: Congratulations on your win! Has the gravity of it all sank in just yet, or are you still processing everything?
TW: Well, if you’ve been through some of the stuff we’ve been through in life… Honestly, Cameron, in the big picture of things, winning a primary election is pretty small potatoes. We’ve, you know, lost a wife to cancer and a son to cancer; been deployed many times in the military. So, we don’t get impressed by too much, you know? Just another day. We’re excited to be able to serve the people of West Virginia and, lord willing, make a difference. But I’m not awed by the moment or anything like that, I would say.
LP: I’m so sorry to hear that. I guess perspective is everything, as they say!
TW: Sure, yeah. Where are you based out of, Cameron? If you don’t mind my asking.
LP: We’re out here in Raleigh County. We cover most of Southern West Virginia and try to extend the reach across the state as far as we can and even some of the closer states like North Carolina and Kentucky. But based primarily out of Raleigh County.
TW: Okay, cool! Are you out in Beckley!
LP: Yes!
TW: Good area. I’ve got some friends down there.
LP: [We] do love it down here! Your win is just one of a number of significant incumbent upsets. A lot of change happened on Tuesday and things got shaken up in the Senate. A lot of [Republican winners] will have Democratic challengers to face in November. If successful, you could be at the forefront of a new era for the Senate, and consequently for the state. How does that feel?
TW: I think that was exactly the point of why a lot of us ran, me in particular. I can’t speak for other people, but it was frustrating to me that we had a Republican governor and the supermajority of Republicans in the House and Senate, and it really felt like we were doing pretty much a lot of the same things that Democrats were doing for the last 85 years as far really catering to the special interest groups and the lobbyists instead of focusing on what’s best for the West Virginia people. The opportunity to make a difference and change the leadership of the Senate, that was one of the reasons that I wanted to get into this race to hopefully make a difference. With new leadership, we can really start to make a change for the better for the people of West Virginia and focus on some of our big issues like education and business climate and infrastructure. But with a real, true conservative lens. West Virginia, with the supermajority that we have. we should be, you know a city on the hill and the shining light for other states to look at. We’re just gonna get in, roll up our sleeves and figure out where the bottlenecks are and move them out of the way so that the government is working as efficiently as possible and really serving the people, as opposed to being served by the people.
LP: Right. There’s a pattern I’ve picked up with the folks I’ve talked to. Republican and conservatism in general have become more general, more vague, I guess. Most everyone is kind of aligning on the Republican side regardless of what the actual values are, so it kind of gets hard to discern who stands for what.
TW: Yeah, I think there’s a lot of truth in that. Obviously, the state has shifted to the red. The Democrat party, they just have really strayed from the foundational Judeo-Christian moral values that made our nation great, and as they did so, they left the people of West Virginia behind. So, everybody’s Republican now, right? And there are a lot of opportunists. We’ve had a lot of high-profile races where, you know, yesterday someone was a Democrat, and they suddenly became a Republican candidate. That’s something we have to keep a lookout [for], and we’ll recruit. If somebody’s not acting in the best interest of the people, I’ll be part of the team that knocks them out of office wherever they are.
LP: Sure! There seems to be a lot of momentum moving into November with the presidential election as well. West Virginia has kind of made clear on where most people here stand in that regard. So, it could really be a dramatic shift, not just on the state level, but nationwide going into 2025.
TW: Wouldn’t that be great? I really miss my $1.78 per gallon gas under President Trump! It’d be nice if they came back with that.
LP: If elected and if all goes well, what are some of the the key issues and the primary concerns that you want to focus on in the Senate?
TW: Well, I think the overarching rubric under which it all falls is to just keeping government on a very short leash. Again, the government is here to serve the people and create a culture where that’s the expectation and not that the government is some sort of idol or that the people are here to serve the government. The big grief for me all along has been improving our efficiency and ranking in education. I think we do that through giving parents the ability to choose the best education option for their kids; support the Hope Scholarship, push authority and funding down to the parents to make the best education choices for their kids. Then, on the public school side, we have 70% of our kids in public school in West Virginia, and we really need to do right by them right now. I have a lot of teacher friends.They’re frustrated with a couple of things – A: The absenteeism rate across the state at any given day in West Virginia schools is 20-25%. How can you possibly teach if a quarter of your kids are missing on any given day? B: They don’t have the tools to discipline the kids. We just had a big incident here in Berkeley County with one of our schools and the inability of the teachers and the staff to discipline the kids properly. The third thing to help our public school teachers would be to reduce the administrative burden on them with all the paperwork they have. You guys don’t see this so much in Raleigh County, but we really need locality pay up here too in the Eastern Panhandle. Because we’re losing our best and our brightest. They could drive an extra 10-15 minutes across the border to Virginia or Maryland and get a 50% or 75% pay raise. So, it’s just a different environment up here and we’ve got to be able to compete for the sake of our kids. So education – number one; number two – business climate; number three – infrastructure. There’s more, but those are the big three for me: education, business climate and infrastructure. We need to get our house in order and increase our ranking. We’re basically last in all of those categories right now.
LP: Fantastic. Any final thoughts you want to leave readers with?
TW: I’m just humbled and grateful that the voters of the eastern panhandle put their confidence in me. I’m dedicated to being present in the community, continuing the meet-and-greets and the listening tours that we’ve been doing all throughout, and really listening to the voters, hearing their concerns, and serving with integrity to push their concerns forward. Those are my constituents, that’s my agenda.
LP: Alright, well congrats again and thanks so much for taking the time! Best of luck to you.
TW: Hey, thanks, Cameron! Would love to meet you in person sometime. Next time I’m down in your neck of the woods with the National Guard, I’ll maybe shoot you a text and we can grab a coffee or something.
LP: Absolutely! Feel free to reach out whenever.
TW: Alright, sounds good, brother. Have a good day. Bye bye now.
LP: You do the same. Bye bye.
A conversation with Tom Willis – Republican nominee for WV State Senate District 15
