Presidential candidates skip Oklahoma ahead of Super Tuesday

With less than two weeks before Oklahoma Republicans pick their nominee for president, where are the candidates?

They're not in the Sooner State.

The 2024 election is shaping up differently than past elections. Leading up to the 2016 contest, several candidates made visits to Oklahoma and had local surrogates to spread their message. Eight years ago this week, Donald Trump visited the Cox Convention Center, Ted Cruz campaigned in Tulsa and Marco Rubio made a stop in Oklahoma City.

This time around, however, candidates are focusing their efforts elsewhere. The only Republican who visited Oklahoma for a public campaign rally was Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was joined by Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt inside a sweltering hot event barn near Tulsa eight months ago.

DeSantis eventually suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump. The former president is the front-runner for the GOP nomination, followed by Nikki Haley, a former governor and diplomat.

"The campaign is so foreclosed now. I mean, there's only two candidates left," said former Oklahoma Republican Party Chair A.J. Ferate. "I think Nikki's trying to conserve her delegate counts for states where it's less foreclosed or there's a higher likelihood of her actually attracting some delegates."

Who's in the lead for GOP nominee?

Trump currently has 63 delegates; Haley has 17. They'll face off again this Saturday in Haley's home state of South Carolina. The eventual nominee will need over 1,200 delegates. Much speculation has centered on what effect, if any, the outcome of the South Carolina primary will have on Haley's campaign. A recent poll showed the former president with a 23 percentage point lead over the former governor and United Nations ambassador.

Haley could drop out of the race after Saturday, leaving Oklahoma Republicans with no real choice in the state's primary. Or she could remain in the race, raising the question of whether any GOP leaders in the state would give her their support.

Oklahoma's presidential primary election will take place on March 5, also known as Super Tuesday. On that day, political parties in 15 states will select their preferred nominee. The Republican National Convention will be in July.

Oklahoma has always been a lower-tier stop on the campaign trail. There aren't many delegates to offer, and the state has reliably voted Republican for decades. Those facts, combined with the strategic nature of national campaign budgeting, means a candidate's money can often be put to better use somewhere else.

Many of those decisions were made months ago. Ferate said that during his term as state GOP chair last year, he invited each of the GOP presidential campaigns to Oklahoma.

"All of them declined on the premise that unless it was South Carolina, New Hampshire or Iowa, they weren't leaving those three states," he said. "It would have been nice to have some more (visits). But I think the reality is that while we don't have a true incumbent, I think most people have viewed President Trump as, you know, Napoleon-in-exile waiting for him to return."

Trump expected to win Oklahoma

Ferate said he hasn't seen poll numbers, but believes the former president has enough support here to win Oklahoma's primary. He hasn't announced a preference between the remaining candidates.

The political staff for Congresswoman Stephanie Bice told The Oklahoman "she will be supporting the Republican Party’s nominee, and we assume that it will be Mr. Trump."

Although Trump and Haley are the only GOP candidates who have delegates and are still campaigning, Oklahoma's GOP ballot includes eight candidates. Well-known candidates like DeSantis, Chris Christie and Vivek Ramaswamy will be on the ballot because they suspended their campaigns after the deadline to withdraw.

The Democratic ballot includes six candidates, including President Joe Biden.

Beyond the Republican Party, there hasn't been much national-level campaign activity in Oklahoma this cycle. The two Libertarian Party candidates on Oklahoma's ballot, Chase Oliver and Jacob Hornberger, spoke at Rose State College this month. Biden has no significant Democratic challenger to his reelection effort, so there's less of a need to get Democratic primary voters to the polls.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Republican presidential campaigns skipped Oklahoma