Oklahoma Election 2020: November 2020 Archives

I voted in person yesterday at 9:35. The line was out the door, but not very far, and I slid my ballot into the scanner and was finished in 20 minutes. The other, larger precinct that votes at the same church had a line across the parking lot, but I suspect that many of those people were from my precinct but had just joined the first line they saw. When I drove back by mid-afternoon and toward the end of the day, there were no lines at all, and that was true of other precincts I passed.

We opted for a home watch party -- me, my wife, our younger two kids (the oldest is away in grad school). We started out scanning local stations at 6 pm, as states began to report results, but they were all in local-news mode, and only PBS was covering national results. We couldn't tolerate that for long, so we switched the screen to the computer, and pulled up Fox News on one size and DecisionDeskHQ.com on the other. We had carryout chicken tikka masala from Desi Wok and later snacked on some Plymouth East Meadow Cheddar I'd brought back from a recent visit to Calvin Coolidge's home town and the cheese factory founded by his father and revived by his son.

I did go out at about 8:30 to take pictures of posted results from nearby precincts. Our precinct officials posted the tape in the window, as required, but they allowed enough overlap with a notice posted next to it so that the results for the presidential and U. S. Senate races were hidden by the other piece of paper.

What I could see was encouraging. Although the midtown precincts I checked were fairly evenly divided between Democrat and Republican candidates, State Question 805 was losing by a substantial margin.

While driving around I flipped through the radio stations. KRMG's Dan Potter had current Mayor GT Bynum IV and former Mayor Susan Savage. I wondered on Facebook why KRMG didn't include a Republican in their coverage, but Democrat allies on past city tax and zoning battles reminded me that they didn't include a Democrat either. Both mayors are proud members of the Money Belt Uniparty who may have only a vague idea where the three eastside seats on the ballot are located. Bynum and Savage were both gleeful about the defeat of District 5 Councilor Cass Fahler, the strongest council ally for Tulsa police officers and the strongest opponent of mask mandates. Bynum called Fahler's campaign "lazy," contrasting it with Mykey Arthrell's tireless pursuit of votes. They also sounded thrilled about the re-election of Connie Dodson in District 6 and Lori Decter Wright in District 7.

I thought that Republicans had a good chance at taking two of the three City Council races on the ballot; Dodson had forged a moderate path on police and masks and seemed likely to win re-election. Fahler's re-election was killed by another 2-to-1 early vote advantage; he won election day but lost the total by 347 votes. I have heard that neighborhood social media pages in the northwestern part of the district were extremely hostile to Fahler, particularly over his stance on mask mandates. These seem to be popular areas for progressives who want to live near the city center but can't afford to live any nearer than Yale Ave. District 6 wasn't close; challenger Christian Bengel was badly underfunded, and the FOP had endorsed incumbent Dodson very early in the race. Wright's challenger Justin Van Kirk poured a ton of his own money into the race, narrowly won among election day voters, but lost by about 1600 votes because of Decter Wright's 3-1 early voting ratio.

Here is a problem with non-partisan city elections on the same ballot as highly partisan races like President and Senate: Voters mark the straight-party line (as Republicans were encouraging voters to do), but that doesn't cast a vote for allegedly non-partisan council races. On such a long ballot, with as many as 18 items for some voters, a non-partisan race at the very end is easy to ignore, and it's easy to vote for the familiar name.

It's apparent that the Tulsa County Democratic Party has been taking local elections seriously and helping Democrats seeking local non-partisan office. The Tulsa County Republican Party needs to follow suit, to work on local races throughout the election cycle, identifying and recruiting potential candidates who support the GOP's values and policy aims, clearing the path for good candidates (perhaps by conducting an endorsing convention to decide among multiple Republican contenders), and connecting them with money and volunteers. The Tulsa GOP needs to be monitoring the performance of our city, county, and school officials, with reporters at every meeting, recording and highlighting examples of bad judgment and favoritism. It's not enough to get busy in the last few months before an election. The Oklahoma GOP's dominance in the legislature was built by party officials back in the late '90s and early 2000s by men like 1st Congressional District Chairman Don O'Nesky, 2nd District Chairman Bob Hudspeth, 4th District Chairman Steve Fair, and State Chairman Gary Jones, who identified candidates from among local leaders, respected by their communities, not necessarily active in politics, but who had a conservative outlook on public policy. The candidates who will put themselves forward aren't always the best positioned to run a serious race or to govern well; a party's job is to identify good candidates, encourage them to run, and facilitate their efforts with resources.

Back at the house: Fox's reluctance to call states that were obviously in Trump's column and out of reach for Biden (like Texas and Florida) got frustrating after a while, and we switched to Newsmax, then eventually to the Daily Wire for their running commentary.

The four of us were doing our own results reporting, each digging into county-by-county results on DecisionDeskHQ.com on our own computers and sharing interesting finds, while listening for commentary or breaking news. I enjoyed using the map results on the Oklahoma State Election Board results page to drill down to the precinct level to see which precincts were still outstanding and the patterns of support for each candidate. The only big flaw is that it doesn't show different colors in the non-partisan races, so there's no easy way to tell where 805 won and lost or which Tulsa City Council candidates won which precinct.

We stayed up long enough to see Trump apparently about to win Wisconsin, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, and suddenly the numbers stopped updating. There were reports that vote counting would stop in Philadelphia and in Atlanta, an obvious move to wait for downstate votes to finish coming in so corrupt big-city machine officials could manufacture enough ballots to tip the states to Biden, the same way Kennedy won Illinois in 1960. We all headed to bed shortly thereafter.

Jamison Faught at Muskogee Politico has a map-filled post on the Oklahoma results. Trump and Inhofe won all 77 counties. This is the fifth presidential election in a row that the Republican nominee has swept the state, although the margin in Oklahoma County was only 3400 votes. Democrats lost their last three rural seats in the State House, plus two in Oklahoma County. Republicans now control the House by 82-19 and the Senate by 39-9, and all of the Democrat seats are in the two biggest cities (OKC and Tulsa) and college towns (Norman and Stillwater). This is almost a complete reversal from the situation in the early 1990s, when rural districts (except northwest Oklahoma's wheat country) were solidly Democrat and nearly all Republican seats were in Tulsa and OKC and their suburbs.

I was disappointed to see the defeat of Republican Cheryl Baber in Senate District 35, a seat that had been held for 32 years by conservative Republicans (Don Rubottom, Jim Williamson, Gary Stanislawski), and before that by long-serving moderate Republican Warren Green. Baber had survived a bruising primary and runoff with establishment-backed Kyden Creekpaum. Although Creekpaum endorsed Baber in the general election (wisely so if he hopes to have a future in Oklahoma Republican politics), the endorsement came late in the game, and Democrat Jo Ann Dossett had racked up a two-to-one advantage in absentee-by-mail ballots, 7402 to 3723. Baber dominated election day voting, but fell short by 638 votes. The same pattern can be seen in the Tulsa County Commission race and in several vulnerable Democrat seats. Republicans are going to have to match and surpass the Democrats efforts in early voting, and to plan for targeting voters soon after the ballot is set.

Massive early voting allows well-funded candidates to target and influence voters and lock in their votes before the candidate with fewer dollars, who delays mailers until closer to election day to make her money stretch as far as possible, has put any information in front of the voters. One of the saddest news items in this election season was a surge of searches on the question "Can I change my vote?" after the second presidential debate.

Polls are open today until 7 p.m. The Oklahoma State Election Board's online voter tool will let you know where to vote and will show you a sample of the ballot you'll see.

Click the link above to download a printable ballot card listing the candidates I'm recommending and (if in the district) voting for in the Oklahoma general election and City of Tulsa runoff on November 3, 2020. Below I'll add more detailed information on issues and candidates. (This entry will change as I decide to add more detail, link previous articles, or discuss additional races between now and election day. The entry is post-dated to keep it at the top.) Please note that the rows on the chart are alternately shaded and unshaded for readability. The presence or absence of shading has no other significance.

This is an unusually early version of the BatesLine ballot card in response to many requests from people who are voting absentee by mail and want to be sure their ballot has plenty of time to arrive. Below is a summary of my recommendations; I will elaborate on them in later entries. I hope to have a formatted printable ballot card in the near future.

Below you'll find some links to websites I found helpful in learning about candidates, their values, backgrounds, and political opinions.

When in doubt, I look at campaign contributions, which often tell a story about a candidate's ideological leanings or close ties with local power brokers. Campaign expenditures can be telling, too: Certain consulting firms have strong associations with the pay-to-play culture that makes our Republican supermajority legislature more crony-infested than conservative. Then there are principled conservative consultants; their presence on a campaign team is always a hopeful indication that the candidate is also a principled conservative.

The presidential election leads the ballot, and Oklahomans have six choices this year -- Democrat, Libertarian, Republican, and three independents -- more than in all the years I've been voting. U. S. Sen. Jim Inhofe is up for re-election against a teleprompter reader, a perennial Libertarian candidate, and two independents. All five congressmen have challengers; the race to watch is District 5, where State Sen. Stephanie Bice hopes to reclaim the traditionally Republican seat from Pelosi Democrat Kendra Horn, the surprise winner in 2018. (Before Horn's win, the seat had been in GOP hands since John Jarman's party switch in 1975.)

The only statewide state office on the ballot in presidential years is a seat on the Oklahoma Corporation Commissioner, which has six year terms. This year, Republican incumbent and former House Speaker Todd Hiett is being challenged by Libertarian Todd Hagopian; no Democrat filed for the seat. All 101 State House seats and the odd-numbered State Senate seats are up for election in presidential years, but many of these races have already been settled in the primary or runoff.

There are two state questions, 805 and 814. SQ 805 is a constitutional amendment that would help career criminals get back to work by reducing the amount of time these repeat offenders could spend in prison and releasing some currently incarcerated career criminals early. SQ 814 is also a constitutional amendment that would divert revenue from the tobacco lawsuit settlement to pay for the unwise Obamacare Medicaid expansion (SQ 802) that was narrowly approved in June.

All 77 counties have four offices up for reelection in presidential years: District 2 County Commissioner, County Clerk, County Court Clerk, County Sheriff. In Tulsa County, Sheriff Vince Regalado and County Clerk Michael Willis were re-elected without opposition. County Court Clerk Don Newberry won a primary rematch in June and has no general election opponent. Republican Josh Turley, Ph.D., is challenging longtime incumbent Democratic County Commissioner Karen Keith.

There are retention votes for three state supreme court justices, two judges on the court of criminal appeals, and three judges on the court of civil appeals. These are yes-no votes, unlike the district judge elections that occur in gubernatorial election years. If "no" prevails -- and it never has -- a vacancy would be created that would be filled by the governor's selection via the judicial nomination process.

The City of Tulsa has runoff elections for three of the nine city council seats. (The auditor and councilors in Districts 2 and 8 won re-election unopposed; the mayor and councilors in Districts 1, 2, 4, and 9 were re-elected by receiving greater than 50% of the vote in the August 25 election, which is a shame.)

MY RECOMMENDATIONS:

As a general rule, I support the Republican candidate, and I'm not aware of any race in which I would counsel otherwise. The nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court demonstrates one critical reason for retaining Republican control of the White House. In foreign policy, we want to keep an administration that has brought Arab states into normal, peaceful relations with Israel, acknowledged Jerusalem as Israel's capital, brokered peace between Serbia and Kosovo, pushed our NATO partners to shoulder their fair share of the financial burden of protecting Europe, and stood firm for better trade deals between the US and the world.

Re-electing Jim Inhofe and the four GOP congressmen, and taking back the 5th Congressional District are essential for regaining Republican control of the House (and booting Nancy Pelosi from the Speaker's chair) and retaining Republican control of the Senate, which in turn is crucial for ongoing efforts to appoint constitutionalists to the Federal courts.

In the Oklahoma Legislature, notwithstanding my disappointment at the Republican RINO leadership, it still is better, generally, to choose Republicans over Democrats. Electing Democrats only seems to encourage the RINOs to raise our taxes. Here in Tulsa County, all of the Republicans deserve your support, particularly:

Senate 35: Cheryl Baber (R)
Senate 37: Cody Rogers (R)
Senate 39: Dave Rader (R)
House 11: Wendi Stearman (R)
House 30: Mark Lawson (R)
House 71: Mark Masters (R)
House 79: Margie Alfonso (R)

Tulsa County Commission District 2: Josh Turley (R). Turley served as a crime scene investigator for the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office and then creating the first risk management program for TCSO, which succeeded in reducing car accidents involving deputies and tort claim payouts, and independently developed policies and procedures to be used by smaller sheriff's offices and county jails to improve performance and minimize risk. Turley wants Tulsa County to follow an open data policy -- by default, data used and generated by county officials would automatically be made available to the public, without the need for an open records request. Turley would be an advocate for transparency in Tulsa County government. Incumbent Karen Keith's consistent votes to waive competitive bidding on bond issues is bad for Tulsa County taxpayers, as is her neglect of rural county roads. More detail here.

State Questions:

SQ 805: No. This constitutional amendment would make it easier for career criminals, including those currently incarcerated, to get out of prison and resume their careers.
SQ 814: Yes (with hesitation). This would mitigate the narrow, foolish approval of SQ 802 by dedicating tobacco settlement money (currently spent very poorly) to cover the cost of Medicaid expansion. My hesitation is that Sen. Nathan Dahm opposed this when it was before the legislature.

On October 30, 2020, I spoke with Jeremie Poplin, filling in for Pat Campbell on Talk Radio 1170 KFAQ, about both State Questions. Click the link to listen.

Judicial retention:

Appointing governors and party affiliation are noted in parentheses. An asterisk indicates that trustworthy conservative commentators disagree with me on those judges.

Supreme Court Justice Matthew John Kane IV (Stitt, R, 2019): Yes (enthusiastically)
Supreme Court Justice Tom Colbert (Henry, D, 2004): No
Supreme Court Justice Richard B. Darby (Fallin, R, 2018): Yes (cautiously)
Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Robert L. Hudson (Fallin, R, 2015): No*
Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Gary L. Lumpkin (Bellmon, R, 1989): No*
Court of Civil Appeals Judge Jane P. Wiseman (Henry, D, 2005): No (emphatically)
Court of Civil Appeals Judge Deborah B. Barnes (Henry, D, 2008): No
Court of Civil Appeals Judge Keith Rapp (Nigh, D, 1984): No

UPDATE 2020/10/28: I've moved my detailed analysis of 2020 judicial retention questions to a separate page and expanded it. I've also modified my stance regarding Justice Darby.

Tulsa City Council:

I support replacing all of the City Councilors, except Cass Fahler in District 5. In each race on the November ballot, a registered Republican is running against a registered Democrat.

Tulsa Council District 5: Cass Fahler (R). At a time when law enforcement is under attack, we need a strong advocate for law and order on the council.
Tulsa Council District 6: Christian Bengel (R).
Tulsa Council District 7: Justin Van Kirk (R).

MORE INFORMATION:

Here are some blogs, endorsement lists, candidate questionnaires, and sources of information for your consideration.

• Talk Radio 1170 Pat Campbell podcast archive
• Sheridan Church's Tulsa Town Hall candidate forum (includes several council candidates in the runoff
• iVoterGuide: Candidate responses to a detailed questionnaire written from a conservative Christian point-of-view
• Muskogee Politico news, questionnaires, and analysis
• Steve Fair and Georgia Wiliams, longtime SW Oklahoma conservative activists, weigh in on judicial retention and state questions
• Oklahomans for Life candidate surveys
• Oklahoma Constitution newspaper's Oklahoma State Senate ratings and Oklahoma State House ratings.
• NRA-PVF endorsements and grades
• Oklahomans for Public Education 2020 voter guide: This is a kind of reverse-psychology voter guide. The red apple next to a candidate's name probably means he or she supports higher taxes, no reduction in school administrative bloat, and no meaningful educational choice for our children and their parents. You should treat a yellow warning triangle as a gold medal -- this is likely a candidate who will defend taxpayers' interests and work for school choice and educational efficiency.

TIP JAR: If you appreciate the many hours of research that went into this guide and into the rest of my election coverage, and if you'd like to help keep this site online, you can contribute to BatesLine's upkeep via PayPal. In addition to keeping me caffeinated, donated funds pay for web hosting, subscriptions, and paid databases I use for research. Many thanks.

Published on 2020/10/08, postdated to stay at the top through election day. Printable ballot card published on 2020/10/17. Updated to reflect a change in my views on Supreme Court Justice Richard Darby.

Pat Campbell with Daryl Simmons and Jarrin Jackson, on Election Day 2020. Photo from TalkRadio1170.com

Introduced by Aerosmith's "Back in the Saddle," Pat Campbell, long-time morning host on Talk Radio 1170 KFAQ, was back on the air this morning after a four-week absence. He was in studio for the full three hours with regular guests Jarrin Jackson and Darryl Simmons, discussing today's election and taking calls.

Pat reported that his absence was the result of voice problems caused by being intubated following a seizure. The intubation left him sounding, he said, like Carol Channing. He went through weeks of physical therapy to restore his vocal performance and allow him to return to the airwaves. He is still clear of cancer; earlier this year, a seizure revealed three cancerous brain tumors, which were surgically removed and followed with a course of chemotherapy and radiation.

Pat expressed his gratitude for the prayers and encouragement of his listeners. He was strongly motivated to come back this morning both to reconnect with his audience and to voice his strong opposition to State Question 805, the pro-career-criminal amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution backed with millions of dollars from out-of-state leftist organizations.

Pat is a great friend of BatesLine, and it was wonderful to be able to speak with him during today's 8 o'clock hour. His voice has been sorely missed, particularly during these critical weeks before the election, but we're blessed to have him back in the saddle again to guide us through whatever its aftermath brings.

Two out-of-state Leftist organizations contributed a total of $6,336,852.36 in support of State Question 805, the proposed constitutional amendment that will allow temporarily inconvenienced career criminals to return more rapidly to their vocation of victimizing their neighbors. The two organizations, the ACLU and FWD.US, combined to provide 87% of the the contribution totals, which include both cash and in-kind contributions; in-kind contributions include both staffing support and direct payments to campaign consultants. Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform also provided $54,629.01 in in-kind support. The Yes on 805 Committee raised a total of $7,281,215.29, of which $666,014.52 was in-kind, as of September 30, 2020.

The breakdown by organization:

• ACLU $2,970,044.46
• FWD.US $3,366,807.90

Keep in mind that these numbers are as of September 30, 2020, and have no doubt grown significantly.

The largest individual contribution was $500,000 from Tulsa heiress Stacy Schusterman. (Her last name is misspelled on the report, without the C.)

$200,000 came from a New York City financial exec named Robert Granieri, who lists his employer as a controversial trading company called Jane Street.

Financial activity for this campaign began in October 2019, with FWD.US paying substantial sums to consultant Brian Elderbloom, Oklahoma PR firm Saxum Communications, and Tulsa law firm Crowe & Dunleavy, Cash contributions began in December 2019, but the required reports for the 4th quarter of 2019 and the first two quarters of 2020 do not appear in the Oklahoma Ethics Commission database.

The grand total raised in the same period by No on 805 is $133,400. That's a 55:1 ratio in favor of the Yes side. The principal donors are Mo Anderson, Robert Funk, and Robert Funk, Jr., each giving $25,000; Mathis Brothers Furniture, the National Police Support Fund, Frank Robson, and RT Development each gave $10,000; and Frank Keating, Kirk Humphreys, and the Oklahoma Farm Bureau gave $5,000 each.

The ACLU's Communist roots in the Stalinist period are well-known. The organization's support for toleration of dissent is typically one-sided, working to facilitate groups hostile to America's founding principles while standing aside when defenders of the American constitutional order are under attack. It's fair to say that the ACLU planted many of the seeds that led to 2020's Antifa riots.

FWD.US is a newer organization founded in 2013 by Silicon Valley tycoons to support amnesty for illegal immigrants, more visas for foreign tech workers, and mass release of criminal predators. (One of the founders of FWD.US, Mark Zuckerberg, has unleashed an additional, massive attack on trust and social cohesion. It's known as Facebook.) The group has a history of "partnerships" with useful, nominally conservative groups like Americans for Tax Reform.

Why are these national organizations so willing to dump millions of dollars into an allegedly grass-roots Oklahoma referendum? I think it's for the same reason that so much has been invested into trying to get Oklahoma to pass the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact: If a solid red state like Oklahoma approves such a radical change, it becomes easier to persuade other conservative states to follow Oklahoma's example. At the state level, the presence of OCPA on the list of supporters gives a veneer of bipartisanship to this leftist constitutional amendment, while the presence of a long-ago police chief (squishy Drew Diamond, renowned for his refusal to deal honestly with the presence of gangs in Tulsa) and a lone district attorney (who won in 2018 with financial backing from many contributors who are now backing 805) allows all that pro-805 money to craft the appearance that law enforcement is ambivalent, despite the opposition of 96% of Oklahoma's district attorneys, the FOP, both candidates for Oklahoma County sheriff, and countless law enforcement officers.

The bulk of the names on the banner ad running on various websites in support of 805 include left-wing names like former Democrat Gov. Brad Henry, disgraced former Democrat Gov. David Walters, former Democrat Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor, and liberal ex-judge William Kellough (who lost re-election to a poorly funded challenger because of his egregious record).