She was active in politics from high school, when she worked to register voters in a mayoral campaign.

Priest was a delegate to the GOP state convention in 1932 and ran unsuccessfully for Congress in Utah on the Republican ticket in 1934.

During Dwight D. Eisenhower's campaign for President of the United States, Priest took charge of the women's division of the Republican National Committee and was credited with the successful drive to get out the women's vote, which totaled 52 percent of Eisenhower's victory margin.

In 1966 she was elected as a Republican to the office of California State Treasurer, narrowly unseating Democrat Bert A.

[6] In 1968 she became the first woman to nominate a candidate for U.S. president for a major political party when she offered California Governor Ronald Reagan's name in a speech before the Republican National Convention.

[1] She was buried in the Wasatch Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Salt Lake City, Utah.