which consisted of West Virginia Democrats who refused to back her in the general election. Pritt dismissed the defections as coming from Democratic officials "who would be Republicans in any other state anyway". Further complicating matters, the National Senate Republican Committee (NSRC) and West Virginia State Victory Committee funded a television ad campaign against Pritt falsely accusing her of voting for a bill that would allow children to access pornography and proposing to teach first graders about condom use, among others. Underwood distanced himself from the negative ads. Political opponents had additionally attempted to paint her as "flaky" and "a little off the wall" by alleging that her mother had dabbled in fortune-telling. Pritt lost in the general election to Republican Cecil Underwood, 51.6 to 45.8 percent. While she sued the NSRC after the election, it was ruled that too much time had passed for it to have caused harm to Pritt. Pritt called on her former opponent Underwood to testify during her suit. Her nomination was particularly ground-breaking because only 20 of the 134 West Virginia legislators were women in 1996, and per the U.S. Census Bureau, fewer women hold jobs in West Virginia than any other state. A study published in 1999 in the Journal of Women, Politics & Policy found that the press coverage surrounding her and Mary Sue Terry's gubernatorial campaigns had been negative, albeit primarily based on issues aside from gender. Even still, none of the state's major newspapers endorsed her campaign. 2000 Pritt ran for West Virginia Secretary of State in 2000, losing the Democratic primary to Manchin, 51.1 to 28.9 percent. After the election, she returned to educational pursuits and studied for a degree in Nutrition. 2016 Pritt was nominated as the Mountain Party's candidate for West Virginia governor on July 16, 2016, at the party's convention. Rev. Jim Lewis, who was previously expected to get the nod, got sidelined by knee surgery. On Bray Cary's statewide show Decision Makers, Pritt called her billionaire Democratic gubernatorial opponent Jim Justice a "Republican". In response, West Virginia Democratic Party chairwoman Belinda Biafore allegedly signed and sent out a letter to an electronic mailing list claiming that the GOP had adopted Pritt, that the Republicans funded her campaign, and that "a vote for Pritt is a vote for Cole". Pritt called the unsubstantiated accusations a "blindfaced lie" and instead argued that a vote for her is