Oklahoma Election 2025: January 2025 Archives

In Oklahoma, election season never ends. (Just ask our weary election board secretaries.)

Two special elections have been called to fill vacancies in Tulsa County State House seats that were just up for election last year: House District 71 in midtown Tulsa and House District 74 in Owasso. The filing period is this Monday, January 27, 2025, through Wednesday, January 29, 2025. The Special Primary Election will be held on Tuesday, April 1, 2025, the runoff (if necessary) on Tuesday, May 13, 2025, and the Special General Election: Tuesday, June 10, 2025. If a runoff is not necessary, the general election will occur on May 13.

(Filing for the vacancy in Senate District 8 in Okmulgee County took place earlier this month, and its primary will occur in March, with a runoff in April, and a general election in May. Filing for non-charter cities like Broken Arrow will be next week, February 3-5, 2025.)

Democrat Amanda Swope faced no opposition when she ran for reelection last year for House District 71. Swope resigned shortly after the start of her new term to take a job in Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols' office. Republican Mark Vancuren faced no primary opposition, then defeated an independent candidate with 76% of the vote. Vancuren is now chief deputy to newly elected Tulsa County Commissioner Lonnie Sims. Both Swope and Vancuren have swapped hours of driving on the Turner Turnpike and miserly pay for a job close to home and a much better salary.

Except for a brief two year period, District 71 had been Republican from its creation in 1967 until 2018, producing conservative representatives like Bill Clark (founding pastor of Redeemer Covenant Church) and John Sullivan (who went from the State House to the U. S. House in 2001). There was a brief interregnum from 2002 to 2004, when a scandal involving RINO incumbent Chad Stites erupted after the primary but before the general election; Democrat Roy McClain, the beneficiary of the scandal, was known as "Dead Man Walking," losing overwhelmingly in his 2004 bid for re-election, the year of the first Republican House majority since the Harding Administration. But Democrats have held the seat for the last four elections, beginning with former news reader Denise Brewer in 2018 and 2020, and Amanda Swope in 2022 and 2024.

In redistricting after the 2010 Census, House 71's boundaries were shifted to include the 61st and Peoria area, a neighborhood of public housing and subsidized apartment complexes. Democrats finished first in House 71 in every race in 2022, and Kamala Harris won 56% of the election-day vote in 2024. It would be amazing if Republicans could retake the district and regain a foothold in midtown Tulsa. That seems quite unlikely, but odd things can happen in low-turnout special elections.

Grover Campbell was the first Republican to win House District 74 in 1990; he held it for two terms before moving to the State Senate. Democrat Phil Ostrander held the seat from 1994 to 2000, when Republican John Smaligo upset the incumbent. District 74 has been in GOP hands ever since. In the 2022 elections, Republicans won the district overwhelmingly in every race, and Donald Trump received 71% of the election-day vote in 2024.

The full list of candidates is here. The filing fee is $500 and candidacy must be filed with the Oklahoma State Election Board in the State Capitol.

On the first day of filing, one Republican, attorney Beverley Atteberry, and two Democrats, PR consultant Amanda Clinton and stand-up comedian Hudson Harder, have filed in House 71. Atteberry ran for the seat in 2018 and 2020, both times making it into the Republican runoff and then losing by a wide margin to a nominee (Cheryl Baber in 2018, Mike Masters in 2020), who went on to lose to Democrat TV news reader Denise Brewer. (In 2020, Masters won election-day voters by almost 800, but was swamped by Brewer's 2,069 absentee and early-vote lead.) Clinton was communications director for Monroe Nichols's mayoral campaign and is a board member of Planned Parenthood of Eastern Oklahoma.

House 74 drew four Republicans and one Democrat on the first day of filing. Johnathon Shepherd is a Marine Corps veteran and Director of Operations for Eagle OPS Foundation, which helps veterans transition to civilian life. Kevin Norwood is a motivational school speaker with wiredinc and a ministry coach. Maggie Stearman is a wife and mother of two small children who has served as a teacher at Owasso Preparatory Academy and as a field organizer for the Republican Party of Pennsylvania during the 2022 election cycle. Stearman has pledged not to take money from lobbyists. Sheila Vancuren is a Realtor and the wife of incumbent Mark Vancuren; just as he is stepping away from the Oklahoma City commute, she is seeking to resume it. Amy Hossain, the lone Democrat so far, is an HR professional with pronouns in her LinkedIn bio.

UPDATE 2025/01/28: At the end of day two, three additional candidates have filed: In House 71, Democrats Ben Riggs and Dennis Baker, and in House 74, Republican Brad Peixotto. Dennis Baker, an attorney, former Tulsa police officer, and former FBI agent, was the Democrat nominee for Congress last year and received 51% of the election-day vote in District 71. He would have a significant name-recognition advantage. The only Ben Riggs I can find is a Sand Springs school teacher.

Brad Peixotto was a Republican candidate for House 74 in 2018 and 2020, losing the primary both times to Mark Vancuren and receiving only 15% of the vote in a two-man race each time, and for Senate 34 in 2022, managing 42% in a losing primary effort against Dana Prieto, who went on to defeat Democrat incumbent J. J. Dossett. In each of these campaigns, Peixotto spent his own money on the campaigns (excepting $700 in contributions in the 2018 race), which appeared as loans to the campaign in 2018 and 2020 and as in-kind contributions in 2022.

UPDATE 2025/01/29: On the final day of filing, two more Republicans filed in District 71: Tania Garza, 35, and Heidemarie Fuentes, 73. Garza is an experience specialist for Tulsa Remote. She appears to be very plugged into the Tulsa establishment.

Twenty-two jurisdictions -- counties, small towns, and rural school districts -- across Oklahoma had elections this past Tuesday, January 14, 2025. Just over 10,000 voters turned out statewide, casting 10,681 votes on 27 propositions (five jurisdictions had two propositions).

Twenty-four county election boards had to set up for early voting and staffing election day precincts. Cleora and Inola school districts and the city of Clinton extend into multiple counties. Two Mayes County precincts had to open for Inola Public Schools. One person showed up and voted no. Craig County had to open a precinct for Cleora schools and Washita County had to open a precinct for the City of Clinton, and no voter showed up at either precinct. The one Wagoner County precinct in the Inola school district drew five voters.

Biggest turnout: 5,379 voters in Muskogee County voted to approve a 0.849% public safety sales tax. Runner-up: 1,159 voters in Inola defeated a $62 million school bond issue 49%-51%. Smallest turnout: Town of Sparks in Lincoln County voted 8-1 for a 25-year extension of OG+E's franchise as the town's electricity provider. (Carlton Landing, Oklahoma's lakefront version of Seaside, Florida, was a close second: 11 voters voted unanimously to authorize the mayor to appoint the town's clerk-treasurer with town council approval.)

The only reason to schedule a special election in January is to hope for low turnout mainly consisting of motivated yes voters. (That gambit doesn't always work, and it didn't work for the Inola school board this time.)

Oklahoma law sets one possible election date for every month in odd-numbered years and for seven months in even-numbered years (January through April, plus June, August, November).

It's time for our legislature to consolidate elections: Every year a June primary, August runoff, and November general election. Federal & state elections in even-numbered years. Elections for all political subdivisions -- including counties, municipalities, school districts, fire-protection districts, rural water districts -- in odd-numbered years. Propositions on the November ballot only. In a true emergency, a proposition could be on another date but would need at least 50% of the number of votes cast in that jurisdiction's previous general election.

When I say municipal, I mean every city and town, including charter cities like Tulsa, Owasso, and Catoosa that currently are allowed to set their own dates. My fraternity brother Brad Waller, who is a city council candidate and former school board member in Redondo Beach, California, says that "California passed a bill (SB 415) to consolidate elections, but they forgot to specifically include charter cities." While most cities moved their elections to conform with the law, Redondo Beach did not, and the city pursued its right to its preferred dates all the way to the State Supreme Court and prevailed there. So any Oklahoma reform will need to include an explicit provision to overrule any dates to the contrary in city charters.

State Rep. Chris Banning has a bill, HB 1151, that is a step in the right direction, putting school elections on the ballot in even-numbered years and making all school board terms four years, with half of a school board's members up for election every two years.

Odd-numbered years would be better. Our federal, state, and judicial ballots are already long enough, and since City of Tulsa elections were moved to the federal schedule, city issues are overshadowed by state and national issues and don't get the public scrutiny that they got when Tulsa's elections were in the winter/spring of even years or (all too briefly) in the fall of odd years.

I would also cut some language out of section 4, so that there is always a top-two general election in November, since far fewer voters turn out for a primary, and some voters have the attitude that the "real" election is not until November, and they're content to let more active voters winnow the choices for them.

4. If more than two candidates qualify to have their names appear on the ballot, the names of all such candidates shall appear on the ballot at the board of education primary election. A candidate receiving more than fifty percent (50%) of the votes cast in the board of education primary election shall be elected to the office. If no candidate receives more than fifty percent (50%) of the votes cast in the board of education primary election, then the two candidates with the highest number of votes shall appear on the ballot at the board of education general election.

Repurposed from a post on Facebook.