18-Year-Old Saira Blair Is The Youngest Lawmaker In The Country Winning West Virginia House Of Delegates Election On Tuesday

Meet Saira Blair, the youngest lawmaker in the United States after yesterday's elections. The 18-year-old earned a seat in West Virginia's House of Delegates after Tuesday's elections, which is a really big deal.

Saira was only 17 years old when she decided to run for the House of Delegates. She beat out a two-term candidate in the primary election (when she wasn't even old enough vote) and went on to run in the general election this week. Now that she has won, she will officially be the youngest active lawmaker once she is sworn in.

"Saira Blair says she will defer her spring semester classes to travel to the state's capitol in Charleston and participate in the 60-day legislative session from January to March. She will be representing the 59th district of 18,000 people in West Virginia's eastern panhandle, not far from Washington, D.C." Time reported.

The young woman is conservative in her views, but she doesn't want anyone to think her parent's views are being mistaken as her own. She knows what she is doing. "I know it's unusual because people my age usually aren't as conservative as I am," Saira told Teen Vogue before the election.

"I don't want people to think that my views are just based off of what my parents taught me. In fact, there are issues we don't agree on completely, like I don't believe in the morning-after pill, but my father does. I'm actually more conservative in some ways."

So why did Saira decide to run now and not wait until she finished college? "After my junior year of high school, I decided to run because I attended a program called Youth and Government, where 300 students go down to Charleston, they write a bill, they hear it in committee, and they bring it out on house floor," she explained to Time.

"After hearing some of the bills that students came up with, and seeing that they were fully capable of doing the job that people 40, 50, years older than them were doing, I realized that I didn't have to wait."

Despite being so successful and focused at such a young age, the West Virginia native doesn't see herself as a career politician. "I'm not looking to become a career politician," she says. "I don't want to climb up the ladder. I'm doing this because I want to help the state of West Virginia; I want to help my community. I'm not trying to work my way up to President," the college student told Teen Vogue.

The publication reported that Saira not only won the election, but she received 63 percent of the votes against the 30 percent votes for her Democratic competitor. We can't wait to see how she helps her state now that she has won.

Photo: Elect Saira Blair's Facebook