Oklahoma is a blood red state. The last time the state elected a Democrat to the Senate was in 1978 when conservative Governor David Boren-- who had eliminated the inheritance tax-- won an open seat. All the state's constitutional elected officials are Republicans and the state Senate consists of 39 Republicans and 9 Democrats, while these state House has 82 Republicans and 19 Democrats. The entire congressional delegation is also Republican. In 2020, Oklahoma voted 1,020,280 (65.37%) to 503,890 (32.29%) for Trump. Every single one of Oklahoma's 77 counties went for Trump. In fact 4 of the most pathetic, backward and ignorant hellholes in America-- Beaver, Cimarron, Dewey and Ellis counties-- gave Trump over 90% of their votes!
That said, both of the two rightist Senators' seats are up for grabs in November. James Lankford is up for reelection. And the senile snowball crank, COVID-infected James Inhofe, 87, announced his resignation a couple of weeks ago. He's backing his equally crazy chief of staff, Luke Holland, 35, also a total Climate change denier. He was proud to say that "Jim Inhofe is exactly right on that. It's just an assault by the left against oil and gas." Just a swamp creature of DC, he's not going to win though. Congressman Markwayne Mullin is running and another dreary wingnut, Rep. Kevin Hern, may jump in. (Mullin isn't running for his House seat.) Other candidates already in the race for the GOP nomination include State Sen. Nathan Dahm and Alex Gray, a Trumpist ex-National Security Council Chief of Staff. Rumored to be running are former Speaker of the Oklahoma House T.W. Shannon, who ran for U.S. Senate in 2014; current Lt. Gov. Matt Pinnell; and a current candidate for Attorney General Gentner Drummond. Completely deranged neo-Nazi pastor Jackson Lahmeyer, currently running against Lankford, and making no headway, is considering switching to the race for Inhofe's seat.
There are no Democrats running for the seat. There's not even a real Democrat running against whackaddoodle Governor Kevin Stitt, who will be facing the State Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister, a conservative Republican who is pretending to be a Democrat so she can run in the general election instead of in a GOP primary. So pathetic!
But... not so fast on this unconstitutional rush to replace Inhofe. If he dies-- which would make him the first Senator to die of COVID-- although several anti-vac Republican House members did-- the GOP can go forward with their plans. But he may live, which makes the plans for the special election unconstitutional. Stephen Jones, who gained national prominence as the attorney for convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, filed the lawsuit with the state Supreme Court late Monday. Inhofe "irrevocable pledge" to the Oklahoma Secretary of State has no legal standing but Stitt set the special election dates anyway, allowing the GOP to rush through the process so that Inhofe's replacement will be chosen in November.
"Jones argues in his lawsuit that the governor lacked the authority to do so because Inhofe hasn’t vacated the office yet. He wants the state Supreme Court to direct the Oklahoma Election Board not to accept declarations of candidacy for the office or print ballots for the contest. The lawsuit contends the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits such an election until there is a vacancy and that the governor should appoint a replacement for Inhofe after he officially vacates the office next year."
In the big blue wave of 2018, Kendra Horn wound up winning the Oklahoma City congressional seat. She was an awful member of Congress-- a worthless GOP-lite Blue Dog and corporate shill-- and was immediately defeated when she sought reelection in 2020. She outspent Republican Stephanie Bice $5,946,195 to $3,508,929 and Bice beat her anyway-- even with the DCCC and its allies dropping another $7.8 million into the race on her behalf! Unable to win in the only swing district in the state, she's now trying to drum up support for a run for the open Senate seat. She may look like Kyrsten Sinema in this photo below-- albeit without Sinema's bizarre sense of style-- but it's Horn, who would be another member of the Manchin-Sinema wing if she won-- which she wouldn't anyway. But the DSCC would waste money on the race.
Of all the states I've ever set foot in, OK is the worst. Dumbest most racist most homophobic and misogynistic white people on earth. AND it's a miserable place, for the most part, and getting worse, wrt climate. I don't know but suspect that it's probably as polluted as TX what with the long history of oil/gas exploitation and fracking.
If you've ever been there, you would EXPECT, with good reason, that they SHALL elect the worst nazi POSs possible. Soon they will have in their delegation people far worse than gomert, green, boobert, cawthorn and everyone they currently afflict DC with.