West Virginia auto dealer Chris Miller has filed pre-candidacy paperwork for a potential run in the state’s 2024 gubernatorial race.
Miller, an owner of the family-run Dutch Miller Auto Group, filed the preliminary paperwork with the West Virginia Secretary of State in December.
Filing pre-candidacy paperwork does not officially launch a campaign for public office, but does allow potential candidates to start raising funds for their campaigns. Miller will have to file in January 2024 to be on the ballot.
Jared Wyrick, president of the West Virginia Automobile Dealers Association, will serve as treasurer for the campaign, according to the filing.
Miller is the son of U.S. Rep. Carol Miller, a West Virginia Republican who has served in the U.S. House of Representatives since 2019.
The family’s dealership business began in 1961 when Miller’s grandfather, H.D. “Dutch,” founded Dutch Miller Chevrolet in Huntington, W.Va.
The dealership group now has seven stores across West Virginia and North Carolina and retails Chevrolet, Subaru, Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep, Ram, Hyundai and Kia.
In an emailed statement to Automotive News, Miller said West Virginia is “in a sweet spot for a serious takeoff for economic growth” and the state should capitalize on the momentum to protect its future.
“We have to grow the state’s population and catapult ourselves ahead of the rapidly changing economic reality that technology brings us,” Miller said in the statement Monday .“I believe that our state needs real-world, job-creating experience, not bureaucrats and hacks playing politics for fun. This is what will make a governor capable of this heavy lift.”
“That’s why I’m running. It’s an obligation to all future West Virginians,” Miller continued. “There is a very simple principle in life: Leave it better than you found it. That’s what I intend to do.”
Miller isn’t the only dealer to eye the state’s top office in recent years. Longtime Kentucky and West Virginia dealer Bill Cole was the Republican nominee in 2016 and was later defeated in the general election by current Gov. Jim Justice.
West Virginia is home to a key Toyota Motor Corp. engine and transmission plant — one of the rural state’s largest private employers.