West Virginia Democrats have a competition for leader of the state party.

Teresa Toriseva, who currently serves as first vice chair of the West Virginia Democratic Party, says she is running for the top spot currently held by Mike Pushkin, who also serves as a state delegate from Charleston.

“This is not a civil war within the Democratic Party. On the contrary, the party is quite unified in message and in mission. And that’s what I found as I’ve been campaigning to run for chair, and I’ve never believed it to be more true,” Toriseva said on MetroNews Midday. “It’s an exciting time for what is a growing, robust opposition party.”

But, “There has been a call for us to prepare for the future better and differently than the past and one of those things that I’m going to be focusing on is building relationships with coalition members from groups that think like us, groups that want to work together with us, from labor to women’s groups to organizing groups that are on the ground doing the work, bringing messages to voters.”

Toriseva is a Wheeling attorney who ran in 2024 for state attorney general, losing in the general election.

Democrats, which used to be the dominant political party in West Virginia, now have almost 327,000 registered voters in the state, about 27% of the overall number of registered voters.

The Republican Party has more than 521,000 registered voters, about 43% of the total number.

Toriseva says Democrats have had a successful period of candidate recruitment that can serve as a base for revitalization.

“Democrats are back, and does that mean we’re going to look like we did a decade ago? No, it’s a new party, and we’re moving forward in a new way, but the future is going to look very different than the past,” she said.

Democrats, under the direction of their own bylaws and state code, are having an organizational meeting at 3 p.m. Saturday in Charleston. The meeting’s focus will be on the election of officers. The meeting will be broadcast to the public via wvdemocrats.com/live

Toriseva has worked alongside Pushkin as one of the top officers of the party for the past several years.

“It’s either have an election now or anoint the incumbent for four more years, and so I do think that elections are healthy, that competitive elections are a sign of a growing and robust party and I don’t think that it’s any indication of a civil war,” Toriseva said.

Pushkin, in response, agreed that anyone is entitled to run for chair and make their case to the members of the executive committee.

And he said the resurgence of the West Virginia Democratic Party has been the result of the hard work of county committees, labor organizations, women’s clubs, Young Democrats, grassroots activists, candidates and countless volunteers across the state.

“What leadership does deserve credit for is creating a plan, bringing people together around that plan, and providing the tools and support necessary to execute it. Our record-breaking candidate recruitment effort did not happen by accident,” Pushkin said.

He said party leaders developed an organizing strategy, held weekly recruitment calls, engaged county leaders and allied organizations, launched the first large-scale candidate recruitment texting program in party history and raised funds to cover filing fees for candidates willing to step forward and put their names on the ballot.

“The question before us now is not who gets credit. The question is whether we continue building on that momentum or allow ourselves to become distracted by internal disagreements while Republicans remain deeply divided,” Pushkin said.

“My focus remains exactly where it has always been: bringing Democrats together, supporting our candidates and taking the fight to Republicans every single day.”