The DCCC Won't Even Try-- But Flipping Seats In Oklahoma Is Not Impossible... Look What Happened Tuesday!

Trumpist crackpot Ralph Shortey... with a prominent Putin-Gate figure

Oklahoma is one of the states-- one of the many states-- the DCCC has completely abandoned. There isn't one Democrat in the state's congressional delegation and the DCCC isn't targeting any districts in the state. It makes it look like the Democratic Party has given up on Oklahoma... and just because Hillary didn't win any districts there. She was the wrong candidate for that state. Trump beat her in a landslide-- 949,136 (65.3%) to 420,375 (28.9%)-- and won every single one of Oklahoma's 77 counties. The only county Clinton was even competitive in, though, was Oklahoma County, the biggest in the state (Oklahoma City), where Trump "only" beat her 141,569 (51.7%) to 112,813 (41.2%). Oklahoma was Bernie country during the primaries. He beat Hillary 174,054 (51.9%) to 139,338 (41.4%). And Oklahomans didn't see Trump as the salvation for their economic woes as much as they looked to Bernie's brand of populism. Bernie's 174,054 primary votes looks even more interesting when it;s looked at next to Trump's 130,141 votes. And in Oklahoma County, Bernie beat Trump by a very wide margin-- 32,368 votes to Señor Trumpanzee's 22,117. Bernie also beat Trump is the state's second biggest county-- Tulsa-- where Bernie won against Hillary with 26,525 votes but outpolled Trump who had 23,900 votes.

It doesn't pay to give up on states like Oklahoma. It would pay to run better candidates that Oklahomans like, not candidates that fat-cat conservative Democrats on the DCCC like. Last month we made the case for why Democrats should rally around Tom Guild's congressional race in OK-05 (which includes Oklahoma City). The blinded and lame DCCC has no idea it's a winnable district-- their moronic, simple-minded and backward-looking mantra is all about going after congressional seats Hillary won and ignoring the seats where Bernie beat Trump in the primaries.

Tuesday there were two significant state legislative races in Oklahoma, one in Oklahoma County and one in Tulsa County. Remember the sad saga of GOP crackpot and Trump crony Ralph Shortey. Shortey, the head of Trump's Oklahoma campaign, was forced to resign from the state Senate in March when he was caught having sex and smoking weed with an underage male prostitute near a church. Senate district 44 was a swing district that Shortey captured a few years ago when the Democratic state senator got caught up in a scandal when she decided not to run for reelection. She pled guilty to criminal charges and Shortey was elected and reelected and made himself the most insane member of a pretty crazy legislature. Shortey wrote a bill to ban the use of aborted human fetuses in food. I swear; this is true. Although he admitted there are no Oklahoma companies, at least none he was aware of, that use aborted human fetuses for food, he claims he read it on the Internet and worried that some California company might ship food made of fetuses into Oklahoma. He is a fanatic anti-immigrant maniac who represented a district that is 58.21% white and 47.82% Hispanic. He claims illegal immigration as the number 1 problem in the district. He's also famous for trying to turn back the clock on the War on Drugs, revving it up again after Oklahoma voted to lower the penalties for nonviolent drug possession from a felony to misdemeanor.

In 2014 he was reelected against Democrat Michael Brooks-Jimenez 5,418 (51.7%) to 4,384 (41.8%). Tuesday Brooks-Jimenez beat Republican Joe Griffin in the special election to replace the disgraced Shortey, 1,975 (55%) to 1,644 (45%). Fired-up local Democratic activists worked hard to bring Brooks-Jimenez over the finish line. He will now be the only Hispanic Democratic state Senator in Oklahoma. Funny how karma can be a bitch sometimes, huh?

In Tulsa, Karen Gaddis, who had run last November and lost, with just 40% of the vote, to the incumbent Republican state Representative (HD 75). He also resigned-- another Republican predator caught up in another typical Republican Party sexual harassment scandal-- and Karen was elected with 1,072 votes (52%) over Republican Tressa Nunley.

I reached out to Tom Guild for his assessment of what these two specials mean in the greater scheme of things. "It is a heartening and welcome development," he told me after the votes were counted, "that Michael Brooks and Karen Gaddis flipped two Republican seats and were elected in the special elections. It appears that voters in Oklahoma’s two largest counties have come to the conclusion that Republican control of every branch of the Oklahoma State Government has been a disaster. Cuts to essential services, hardships, and huge budget shortfalls have become the rule, not the exception, for the better part of the last decade. Huge tax cuts by the Republican State Legislature for the wealthy, special interests, and the fossil fuels industry have been a dismal failure of historic proportions. Hopefully, Oklahoma will come home and restore sane and responsible representation in Congress and at the state level in upcoming election cycles."

Increasing Democratic Party voter share-- the way local Democrats have been doing in legislative races all over the country-- and managing to flip many of them, is another indication of a building wave against the GOP for 2018 and 2020. In Oklahoma, the 5th district should be a top DCCC target; it isn't. But it is a top Blue America target and we're hoping to help Tom Guild win there next year-- and make history. He's running against a total Trump/Ryan rubber stamp, far right Republican Steve Russell, who is corporately funded. In 2016, Russell spent $847,193 in his race against an utterly uninspiring centrist Democrat, Al McAffrey, who didn't bother campaigning and only spent $687 on the race. Please consider helping Guild get his message out and take Oklahoma City back for the progressive wing of Democratic Party. It's an achievable goal and you can contribute to Tom's campaign by tapping the Act Blue thermometer on the right. Let's give congressional progressives like Ted Lieu, Ro Khanna, Pramila Jayapal and @IronStache some backup... and a strong, values-driven 2019 team in the House.