But Hanna, now 19, soured on Obama’s policies. This month, he was elected to the West Virginia House of Delegates as a Republican, becoming one of the party’s youngest black legislators in the country.
Hanna grew up not only in a state that is overwhelmingly white, but in a white family. He was adopted as a child. Racial differences have hardly registered in his short life, Hanna said.
During Obama’s first term in Washington, his father lost his job as a coal miner, and Hanna blamed the Obama administration’s environmental policies. “Once I learned more about his politics and how they were affecting our community, my attitude changed,” he said. “By 2012, I was definitely a Mitt Romney fan.”
By then, he had also resolved to run for delegatein the state Legislature, to be a more forceful advocate for the state’s 44th District. He sums up his platform as “God, guns and babies.”
At Richwood High School — where almost all the students were white — he had served as class president for three years and as president of the student body in his final year.
As a senior, Hanna began his campaign to unseat an incumbent Democrat, Dana Lynch, in the statehouse.
After school and on weekends, he knocked on hundreds of doors in an attempt to reach every registered Republican in his district. He won his party’s primary by 45 percentage points in May.
Hanna then toppled Lynch in the general election in November, winning by 25 percentage points. “It was kind of a surprise,” Gilson said, pointing out that the rural district is predominantly older, white and conservative. Voters are mostly focused on the economy, he said, while age and race are marginal issues.
His legislative focus will be on education. He wants to create an elective course that introduces technical education in middle schools. “There are a lot of good-paying, high-skill jobs out there that don’t require a four-year degree,” said Hanna.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.