Oklahoma: Republicans vs... ?

This one was tough as Democrats have completely lost "Little Dixie"

Topline Takeaways

• Donald Trump won every county in Oklahoma, matching his previous performance in 2016.

• Joe Biden built upon Clinton’s 2016 performance by roughly 5 points, mainly due to the absence of significant support of a third party candidate.

In-Depth Insights

Oklahoma is often called the “Buckle of the Bible Belt” as its voters are incredibly religious and socially conservative. In the mid 20th century, the state was regularly contested as conservative Democrats held more sway in the national party. That all changed at the turn of the millennium. The 2020 election marks the sixth consecutive election were the Republican presidential candidate won every county in the state. Donald Trump continued the trend by holding on to over 70% of the state’s White voters.

Joe Biden didn’t win any counties in the state but he did come incredibly close to capturing Oklahoma county, (home to Oklahoma City) losing by a little over 3,000 votes. While Biden performed more strongly than Clinton in many of the state’s more urban counties, this was largely due to 2016 third-party voters flipping toward Biden. (Gary Johnson won nearly 6% of the vote for the Libertarian party in Oklahoma during the 2016 election. The 2020 candidate Jo Jorgensen barely managed to score 1% of the vote four years later.)

Forecasting the Future: With the national Democratic party continuing its shift to the left, don’t expect Oklahoma’s voting patterns to change much in the near future. The southeastern portion of the state, (often dubbed “Little Dixie”) was once known as a Democratic stronghold but has mirrored other neighboring Southern states as conservative voters defected to the Republican party. This transition seems to have reached its logical conclusion; all of those once blue counties gave Trump as much as 80% of their vote. Even the state’s substantial Native American population is fairly moderate and is not in lockstep with the Democratic party. While there’s almost no direction for Democrats to go from here but up, voters have been given no reason to rethink their decisions quite yet.

Leftover Links

• Learn the history of “Little Dixie” and how Democratic dominance slowly eroded over time.

• In 2018, Kendra Horn gave Oklahoma Democrats hope when she won the state’s 5th congressional district. Those hopes were dashed in 2020 when Stephanie Bice reclaimed the district for Republicans.

• The Supreme Court recently affirmed past treaties with Native Americans which designated nearly half of Oklahoma as Native lands. Understand the implications of the recent ruling.