Daily Kos Elections' project to calculate the 2016 presidential results for every state legislative seat in the nation visits Oklahoma, a heavily Republican state where Democrats just picked up two conservative seats in special elections on Tuesday. You can find our master list of states here, which we'll be updating as we add new data sets; you can also find all of our calculations from 2016 and past cycles here.
Democrats haven’t won Oklahoma’s electoral votes since Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 landslide, and Al Gore’s 60-38 loss was the last time a Democratic presidential nominee won a single county in the state. Team Blue maintained control of the Oklahoma legislature decades after the state stopped supporting Democratic presidential candidates, but the state House flipped in 2004 and the Senate went red four years later.
The GOP has a firm hold over both chambers, but surprisingly, Democrats have scored some pickups in special elections over the last few years. In September of 2015, Democrat Cyndi Munson pulled off a 54-46 win in HD-85 in the Oklahoma City suburbs, a seat that backed Mitt Romney 61-39. In January of 2016, Democrat J.J. Dossett won SD-34 in the Tulsa area 56-44, a big turnaround from Romney’s 70-30 win. In November, Munson won 54-46 as her seat backed Trump by a smaller 49-43 margin. Dossett, whose seat backed Trump 68-26, does not face voters again until 2018.
Despite those twin pickups, Trump’s 65-29 victory made it tough for Team Blue to make any gains in November. The GOP netted three state Senate seats and emerged with a 42 to six supermajority, while Team Red netted four seats in the lower chamber and won a 75-26 edge. In the Senate, where half the chamber is up every two years, Trump carried 44 seats, losing only the same four districts that Romney had lost four years before. In the state House, which is up every two years, Trump won 90 of the 101 seats; Trump lost three Romney seats while flipping no Obama districts.
Despite Team Blue’s bad showing in November, Democrats again performed well in 2017’s special elections. In a May special for HD-28, a seat located on the outskirts of Oklahoma City, Republican Zack Taylor won just 50-48 in a district that had gone from 69-31 Romney to 73-23 Trump. And on Tuesday, Democrats scored one pickup in each chamber. In HD-75, located in the Tulsa area, Democrat Karen Gaddis won 52-48 a few months after the seat went from 64-36 Romney to 58-36 Trump. In the Oklahoma City-area SD-44, Democrat Michael Brooks-Jimenez pulled off a 55-45 victory in a district that moved from 61-39 Romney to 56-37 Trump.
Democrats are still deep in the minority, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon in such a conservative state. Still, Team Blue’s wins when there is no presidential race on the ballot may be a good sign for the party’s chances in the 2018 governor’s race. Republican Gov. Mary Fallin is termed out, and a May poll from SoonerPoll.com gave her a horrific 31-61 favorable rating. There’s little other data, but Tuesday’s special election flips, in addition to being a sign that anti-Trump Democratic enthusiasm is high, may be an indication that even conservatives are fed up with the status quo.
And the status quo is bad. As we've noted before, thanks in large part to falling oil prices, Oklahoma's financial situation is an utter mess. Over the years, the GOP-dominated state government has instituted large income tax cuts and huge cuts to oil and gas production taxes, and the state is suffering from the loss of revenue. Rural hospitals have been closed, and state troopers are only allowed to drive 100 miles per day. Perhaps most dramatically, scores of schools have adopted four-day school weeks. Team Blue has two potentially strong candidates running for governor: state House Minority Leader Scott Inman, a vocal Fallin critic, and ex-state Attorney General Drew Edmondson, who narrowly lost the 2010 primary.
However, if Democrats want to regain the governor’s office after two terms of Fallin, they’ll need to win over voters who haven’t backed Democrats in a while. Even after Tuesday, Democrats hold just three Trump Senate seats and 17 Trump House seats. The reddest Democratic-held Senate district is Dossett’s district. In the House, the Trumpiest Democratic seat is HD-01 in the southeast corner of the state. This district moved from 76-24 Romney to 81-17 Trump, but Democratic incumbent Johnny Tadlock won a second term 60-40. This isn’t quite the reddest Democratic-held seat we’ve found so far anywhere in the country, but it’s close; in West Virginia, Democrats hold a district that backed Trump 82-16.
The GOP holds one House seat that backed Clinton. HD-71, located in the Tulsa area, moved from 53-47 Romney to 50-43 Clinton, but Republican Katie Henke won a third term 56-44. However, a relatively red state House seat will be up soon. HD-46, located around Normand, went from 60-40 Romney to 52-41 Trump. On Sept. 12, there will be a special election between Democrat Jacob Rosecrants and Republican Darin Chambers. The GOP holds no Clinton Senate seats, though SD-40, located in the Oklahoma City area, went from 57-43 Romney to just 46-45 Trump. Freshman Republican Ervin Yen will be up in 2018.