The American Federation of Teachers' West Virginia branch has endorsed businessman Jim Justice for governor and former attorney general Darrell McGraw for state Supreme Court justice in the May 10 primary.
"We felt like Jim Justice is an educator and has always supported public education," said AFT-WV President Christine Campbell. She said her union has about 8,500 members statewide.
"A strong public education system is the key to repairing the image of our state and attracting new jobs here," Justice, a billionaire Democratic candidate who has a teaching certificate, said in a press release alongside the endorsement. "We need to have a workforce that has the skills to compete nationally. I'll listen to our teachers and get the politicians out of their way."
Earlier this year, the West Virginia Education Association, another teachers union, gave Justice and McGraw its endorsement. The West Virginia School Service Personnel Association - which represents many non-educator school workers like cooks and custodians and broke off from AFT-WV in December - endorsed state Senate Minority Leader Jeff Kessler for governor, and made no further endorsements other than for local school board races.
Campbell praised all three Democratic gubernatorial candidates: Justice, Kessler and former U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin. She said primary endorsement decisions are tough, but said Justice supports giving teachers more involvement at the state level and giving all school employees "the voice they deserve."
Republican gubernatorial candidate and Senate President Bill Cole is uncontested in his primary, and Campbell said he didn't return a union questionnaire to be considered for an endorsement.
Campbell said the Committee on Political Education of the AFL-CIO, the union umbrella organization to which AFT belongs, chose not to endorse a gubernatorial candidate in the primary, but the AFT-WV's Committee on Political Education made its own choice Saturday.
Campbell said the AFL-CIO did choose to endorse McGraw in the nonpartisan Supreme Court race, which has no general election and will be decided during the May 10 primary.
She said AFT-WV's Committee on Political Education is comprised of the union's roughly 18-member executive committee and either a president or a president's designee from the 42 smaller chapters of the union, including 40 county chapters. Some individuals are both county chapter presidents and executive committee members.
AFT-WV also released Thursday the primary endorsements for other statewide offices and for the state Senate and House of Delegates. They'll be posted on the union's Facebook page at facebook.com/aftwv.
Reach Ryan Quinn at ryan.quinn@wvgazettemail.com, facebook.com/ryanedwinquinn, 304-348-1254 or follow @RyanEQuinn on Twitter.