By Chad Alexander
Kendra Horn had, according to the media, a “shocking” victory last Tuesday. In the closing days of the last election cycle, many wondered if the DCCC missed an opportunity by not supporting her in Congressional District 5. She worked tirelessly for a year for earned media, fundraising, and building a huge volunteer organization. She highlighted the issues voters cared about such as healthcare and education. Congresswoman Elect Horn out raised the incumbent Rep. Steve Russell in the third quarter. Rep. Russell held one town hall in all of 2018, barely spoke with the media, and his television and radio ads were almost exclusively focused on his military career. It seemed very much a single-issue campaign. Horn’s extensive ground game should not be understated. For close to a full year, her campaign identified supporters of both parties and worked hard to turn get them to the polls on election day.
Many political professionals spent the last two weeks asking whether anyone had ever seen a poll in the closing two weeks of the campaign. A poll probably would have been just as inaccurate as it was with the Governor’s race. Why? Midterm turnout was 56% of registered voters. Midterm polls focus heavily on likely voters; after all 2014 saw historically low voter rates. The 2018 midterm turnout crossed 115 million voters from the national perspective. This is the highest midterm turnout in at least 105 years. The bottom line is a one-year hard working campaign from a challenger was better than a three-week television campaign from an incumbent where the ads rarely addressed voter concerns.
The election of Congresswoman elect Horn was the only real bright spot for Oklahoma Democrats. The night belonged to Republicans…and it was a bloody massacre. Headlines and journalists on some local television stations over simplified what happened on election night. In the last week, how many times have your read or heard the terms urban and rural? These terms may have been accurate 20 years ago, but times evolved. Those terms are too simplistic.
I would recommend four categories: urban core, suburban, exurban, and rural. As I pointed out in the primaries, 36 counties made up eight percent of Republican voters, while seven counties made up 58 percent of Republican voters. I don’t believe anyone should or would consider Canadian, Rogers, or Wagoneer as traditional rural counties now. They also are not urban core areas. These are what I refer to as the exurban counties surrounding Oklahoma and Tulsa counties.
What about Drew Edmondson?
Drew Edmondson ran a very education focused campaign. The first and last words to roll off his tongue at any debate or speech given on the campaign trail. Education was the focus of most of his television ads as well. Unless you paid special attention, it seemed as if Edmonson ran a single-issue campaign. Edmondson started the general election in great position. Stitt had negative ads ran against him in a primary and run off election. Edmondson never took a hit during that time. Quickly after Stitt defeated Mayor Cornett in the run off, the Democrat Governors Association went on air attacking Stitt. Edmondson was on television as well. Governor Elect Stitt reloaded his campaign account.
While Edmondson performed well in Oklahoma County and Edmond in particular, this wasn’t the case in suburban areas state-wide. A quick scroll of precincts in Edmond showed Edmondson winning give or take 7 of 12 precincts in Republican incumbent Rep. Mike Osburn’s district and 6 precincts in Rep. Martinez’s district. Rep. Osburn was re-elected with 58 percent of the vote and Rep. Martinez was re-elected with 61 percent of the vote. This was not the case in other suburban areas around the state where Stitt won handedly.
Final Analysis
After election day and the dust settled, Republicans gained on their super majority in the House of Representatives now control 76 of 101 seats. Minority Leader Steve Kouplen was defeated by a candidate who didn’t raise a single dollar or campaign on any level. Dem Incumbents Donnie Condit and Karen Gaddis were also defeated. Now, 46 of 101 House members will be freshman. Yes, almost half of the House will be freshmen when Session begins. Democrats had a net gain of one seat in the State Senate. The Senate will now have 39 Republicans and nine Democrats. In the end with the advantages Edmondson had in the General Election, he only outperformed the 2014 nominee Joe Dorman by 1.23 percent. Dorman did not receive any help from outside groups like Edmonson did.
It’s an incredibly premature notion to consider that Edmond would turn blue as several factors were at play in the Governors’ race in that area. Republicans won every state-wide race and even gained in the State House of Representatives. Make no mistake a Red Hurricane hit Oklahoma on election day and a much-deserved victory by Kendra Horn was in the calm eye of the storm.
Chad Alexander is a political consultant, lobbyist and Co-Host of The Ride from 3-6 pm on KOKC 95.3 FM and 1520 AM
I disagree, it was not a single-issue campaign by Russell. Simply following the dollars showed Horn had a 3-1 spending advantage. Kendra and her PACs drowned out Russell on TV ads, where Russell’s were largely rehashed b-roll from previous election ads. Steve had no direct mail, no digital presence, and a ground game that didn’t actually gear up until the final weeks of the campaign. He took his voters for granted.
And how did Chad become a political consultant again? He was sent to jail for serious drug charges. Google his name. He was a key player at AH Strategies, the corrupt political consulting firm that was forced to shut down because of illicit activity.