State Chamber debate set as Oklahoma's GOP Senate race hits home stretch

Republicans vying to replace Sen. Jim Inhofe head to the home stretch this week in a race distinguished by the lack of discourse among the top candidates.

A State Chamber debate set for Wednesday apparently will be missing the race's frontrunner, U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin, marking the third event in the last few weeks that he has skipped. Four of the 13 GOP candidates are confirmed to appear: former Oklahoma House Speaker T.W. Shannon, state Sen. Nathan Dahm, former Inhofe aide Luke Holland and former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt.

Mullin is expected to be in Washington for House business, which was the case for a debate televised statewide two weeks ago and a forum last month hosted by the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma. Mullin declined offers to appear virtually and by satellite feed at the forum and debate.

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The compressed campaign period created by Inhofe’s surprise resignation — announced in late February — has put an extra high premium on money and name recognition in the crowded Republican race, which Mullin and Shannon, now an Oklahoma City banker, have led from the beginning.

Mullin has been in Congress for nearly a decade and so is already familiar to an eastern Oklahoma district with 234,000 Republican voters. His campaign spent about $1.2 million on broadcast advertising from April 1 through June 8, while two outside groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on his behalf, focusing on the Oklahoma City market, where Mullin may be known more as a plumber than a lawmaker.

Markwayne Mullin, T.W. Shannon top polls, but many still undecided

Despite his advantages, Mullin has not cracked 40% in a public poll; polls in March and in June by Amber Integrated and a News 9 poll in May by SoonerPoll showed the congressman drawing support in the high 30s. Shannon has placed in the mid- to high teens in those polls. The latest survey from Amber Integrated, conducted June 6-9, showed nearly a quarter of likely GOP primary voters still undecided on the race.

Shannon, the CEO of Chickasaw Community Bank, has not been on a ballot since 2014 but has remained politically active, heading a group called Black Voices for Trump in 2020. He raised more than $800,000 for this Senate race, not counting his own funds, through June 8. An outside group backing Shannon has spent just over $1 million on behalf, mostly on television ads.

The primary is June 28.  Early in-person voting begins Thursday. A runoff will be necessary on Aug. 23 if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote.

Mullin could win the nomination without a runoff, said pollster Jackson Lisle, a partner in Amber Integrated. But Lisle last week did not consider it probable. The eventual nominee will face Democrat Kendra Horn, a former congresswoman from Oklahoma City, independent Ray Woods and Libertarian Robert Murphy.

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The GOP race has been mostly free of conflict, though Dahm has hit Mullin for breaking his term limits pledge in the House and for supporting a $42 billion aid package for Ukraine, while candidate Alex Gray has criticized Shannon for joining a friend-of-the-court brief on the McGirt side in the Supreme Court case regarding the Muscogee (Creek) reservation.

Luke Holland, Scott Pruitt and Nathan Dahm

Both of Oklahoma’s current senators, Inhofe and Sen. James Lankford, were U.S. House members when they won their Senate seats. Both captured the Senate seats in special elections called when the incumbent resigned during his term. The major difference this year is that there will be four years left of Inhofe’s term, while Sens. Tom Coburn and David Boren resigned with two years left of their terms.

Inhofe first won the seat in 1994 in a race that was also run in a tight time frame. Boren announced his resignation in April of that year, when the primaries were held in August. Two sitting members of Congress, Inhofe, a Republican, and former Democratic Rep. Dave McCurdy easily won their two-person primaries.

In the general election race that year, Inhofe’s campaign coined the term, “God, gays and guns” to describe why Inhofe would win.

Some Republican candidates in the race this year seem to be using the same playbook. Holland and Shannon in particular have stressed their religious beliefs, while all of the top candidates have come out strongly for gun rights. Mullin’s latest ad seeks to define gender through wrestling T-shirts.

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Holland has been endorsed by Inhofe, who has appeared in ads and helped raise money for his former chief of staff. Holland reported last week that he had raised more than $1 million for the race through June 8, not counting his own money. A political action committee (PAC) financed by a few donors has spent another $564,000 on his behalf.

If Holland, a political newcomer, is having trouble gaining traction, so is Pruitt, whose name is much more familiar, having served as state attorney general and as a state senator before going to Washington in the Trump administration.

Pruitt’s short tenure at the Environmental Protection Agency generated numerous controversies related to his spending. A report sent to President Joe Biden last month from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel said allegations related to improper spending on travel and security under Pruitt had been substantiated.

Pruitt reported last week that he had raised less than $108,000, not counting his own money, through June 8, and had less than $10,000 in his campaign account.

Pruitt made a late and low-key entrance into the race, showing up at the state Capitol with just a few hours left in the filing period on April 15. Many big donors had already committed to other candidates, though it’s not clear they would have backed Pruitt if he had gotten in the race earlier.

In the Amber Integrated poll taken June 6-9 of 400 likely Republican primary voters, Pruitt was supported by 5%, with another 1% leaning his way.

Dahm has had the backing of a group aligned with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, which has reported spending nearly $900,000 on his behalf, and can claim authorship of gun bills and anti-abortion legislation signed by Gov. Kevin Stitt. However, Dahm's support was at 5% in the latest Amber Integrated poll.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Markwayne Mullin, T.W. Shannon top polls in race to succeed Jim Inhofe