Colleen McCarty: Democrat for nearly 17 years, Republican for 1.7 years

Steve Kunzweiler, the incumbent Tulsa County District Attorney, has been recognized as a Certified Republican by the Oklahoma Republican Party. This means he's been a registered Republican voter for at least five years, has not contributed to a Democrat candidate within five years, and is in agreement with at least 80% of the Oklahoma Republican platform, does not support abortion, and is pro-Second Amendment. The designation is offered by the state party to help voters discern between candidates who genuinely share their values and politicians who have opportunistically adopted the GOP label in order to get elected in this very Republican state.

His opponent, the newly registered Republican Colleen McCarty, has said that the five-year voter registration requirement is the only one keeping her for being a certified Republican (despite her history of participating in a pro-abortion rally). She says that she'll meet that requirement if she's elected DA by the time she runs for re-election in 2030. She's even claimed that by that time she'll have been a Republican for as long as she was ever a Democrat.

That's not true, Colleen.

According to official information from the Tulsa County Election Board, here are Colleen Lilah McCarty's party affiliations over time:

• February 4, 2004: registered as an independent (1,343 days)
• October 9, 2007: changed to Democrat (6,192 days)
• September 21, 2024: changed to Republican (609 days)

So as of today, Colleen McCarty has been a Democrat 10 times longer than she's been a Republican. She was a Democrat for 16.964 years; she's been a Republican for 20 months. If she stays Republican, it won't be until September 4, 2041, that she'll have been a Republican as long as she was a Democrat. That's 15 years from now.

Maybe Colleen McCarty forgot. Or maybe she just thought that no one would be able to fact-check her on something that happened so long ago.

UPDATE 2026/06/09: We now have access to Colleen McCarty's responses to the Tulsa County Republican Party questionnaire and a transcript of her candidate interview. In both the interview and questionnaire, she set out the claim that she was an independent until 2018 and only changed parties to Democrat to be able to vote for her husband, Rusty Rowe, who was a candidate that year in the Democrat primary for House District 66. As the official record shows, she changed parties to Democrat in 2007. Here is her version of events in the interview:

I changed parties to Democrat. I was an independent my whole life, all the way up to 2018, when my husband ran for office, so I could vote for him in the primary and so I could support him, because his consultant said that his wife needed to be a Democrat. At that time I was in law school and I didn't think it really mattered, so I changed.

But even if she had been an independent in 2018, she would not have needed to change parties to vote for her husband, as the Democrat Party opted to allow independents to vote in their primaries for the 2018-2019 election cycle. From an Oklahoma State Election Board press release from March 29, 2018 about the deadline for party changes:

Oklahoma has a modified closed primary system, meaning registered voters of a political party may only vote in their party's primary and runoff primary elections.

However, the law allows the parties to notify the State Election Board every two years if they would like to let Independents vote in their primaries. The Democratic Party is allowing Independent voters to participate in its primaries and runoffs in 2018 and 2019.

The official election record shows that McCarty voted in-person in presidential preference primaries in 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2020, and you'd think that someone who was a frequent voter and a repeat donor to Bernie Sanders might remember that she showed up to the polls when Bernie was on the ballot in 2016, whether she voted for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in 2008, and whether she backed Biden in 2020 or one of his rivals. She also voted in-person in state primaries in 2014 and 2016. When you go to the polls on a primary election day, the first question you're asked is which party, and then you sign the book for your party, and are handed a ballot for your party. It's hard to believe that she had forgotten within two years after the 2016 primary that she was a Democrat, and her husband's campaign consultant certainly would have been able to look up her party registration.

The claim that McCarty thought she changed parties in 2018 but misremembered is just not plausible. As with so much about the McCarty campaign, this story appears to be a lie designed to reassure Republican voters, calculated to stretch somewhat plausibly around the only facts she thought might come to light.

Other interesting finds from the questionnaire:

Question 5, titled "Pro-Life," reads: "God is the Author and Creator of life. All human life, both born and in the womb, must be protected. Do you oppose abortion? Please, explain." McCarty did not check either the YES or NO box, but wrote:

As the executive branch, the DA takes an oath to uphold the Constitution and current law. Currently in Oklahoma, abortion is legal only in circumstances of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother. I would uphold current law, as sworn to do, as your next DA.

Question 7, titled "Traditional Marriage," reads: "Marriage is the union of one man and one
woman. PERIOD." Again, McCarty did not check either the YES or NO box, but wrote:

As the executive branch, the DA takes oath to uphold the current law. Currently in Oklahoma non-traditional marriage is legal. I would uphold the law as your next DA.

The last question is titled, "Have You Been Actively Involved In The Republican Party?" It reads: "Please, provide names of a few Candidates you have supported with donations or
volunteer work in their campaigns and list any Republican Clubs with which you have been
involved." McCarty checked yes, apparently claiming the campaign contributions of her mother, Paula Marshall, as her own:

My family has supported numerous candidates throughout my life including Donald Trump, MarkWayne Mullin, Kevin Stitt, Jon Echols, Dave Rader, Chip Keating, and T.W. Shannon.

She then characterizes her lobbying activity on behalf of Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform and Oklahoma Appleseed Project as "work[ing] with numerous republicans [sic]":

I personally have worked with numerous republicans in the Oklahoma House and Senate on bills that keep Oklahomans safer and are responsible with our tax dollars. Those include: Pro Tem Greg Treat, Sen. Dave Rader, Rep. Toni Hasenbeck, Rep. JJ Humphrey, Rep. Danny Williams, Rep. Jon Echols, Rep. Judd Strom, Sen. Aaron Reinhardt, and Sen. Julie Daniels