Commentary: Only ripples from the blue wave reached Oklahoma, but the GOP should acknowledge the erosion

Before the dust even had a chance to settle in last week’s elections, Republican House Speaker Kyle Hilbert proclaimed the results “demonstrate that Oklahomans continue to believe in the conservative principles, priorities and leadership that have helped move our state forward.”

Republicans may have emerged maintaining control of all statewide and federal offices and commanding supermajorities in the Legislature, but voters didn’t actually signal that they embrace the GOP’s “conservative principles, priorities and leadership.”

In fact, I think they did the opposite. If Republicans are too shortsighted to recognize the as-yet small speck on the horizon is actually a freight train of doom hurdling toward, then they’re going to be in big trouble over the next decade.

The 2026 elections should be construed as a warning shot across the bow for the GOP. A prudent leader would consider it a sign that it’s time for the party to take some time to rethink whether its  “priorities” and “conservative principles” actually align with what voters want and need.

Here’s why:

• Five Republican state House incumbents lost to Democrats on election night. Typically Democrats don’t even win contests for seats in both chambers that the incumbent is vacating. For five incumbent Republicans to be unseated by Democrats is unusual and a red flag that the tide is beginning to shift.
• The state’s most populous counties — Tulsa and Oklahoma — turned blue Tuesday night. Those counties also said “no thanks” to some of their current Republican state lawmakers. Oklahoma County residents actually elected a Democratic slate of candidates and booted their longtime Republican county assessor from office. A political expert once told me that shifts in voting patterns in Oklahomans living in urban and suburban areas are typically harbingers of broader political change in the state. When those areas change from blue to red or red to blue, the rest of the state slowly follows.  
• Republicans almost lost control of two seats in the U.S. House. Democrat Jena Nelson fell only about 3,300 votes short of upsetting Republican U.S. Rep. Stephanie Bice in Oklahoma’s 5th Congressional District, which includes parts of Canadian, Oklahoma, Logan, Lincoln, Pottawatomie, and Seminole counties. For context, the contest drew over 264,500 voters. Bice barely won despite the GOP-controlled Legislature’s previous efforts to gerrymander the district to guarantee Republican victories. In the 1st Congressional District, Republican Mark Tedford managed to win by only about 10,700 votes in an area that represents Tulsa, Creek, Rogers and Wagoner counties.
• Voters again squashed legislators’ state questions. For the third time in as many months, Oklahoma voters rejected the “conservative principles” that state lawmakers claimed that their supporters espoused. It turns out that Oklahomans don’t want Republicans to be able to put their fingers on the scale when it comes to judicial selections or want state officials to muck around with property taxes — the primary local revenue stream that schools, counties and municipalities rely on to keep the lights on. And interestingly, those “conservative principles” that legislators were convinced Oklahomans wanted didn’t just lose by a little. Voters destroyed them. The effort to rig the judicial selection process lost by 480,000 votes. A question that would have reduced how much property taxes could grow lost by over 91,000 votes. Lawmakers would be wise to keep that in mind when Republican Governor-elect Mike Mazzei starts putting pressure on them to eliminate property taxes for some Oklahomans, and the next time they’re tempted to put issues on the ballot. Voters are proving to be increasingly skeptical of legislative ballot measures.
• Texas. Voters living in what has long been considered a Republican stronghold, elected a slate of Democrats to legislative, statewide, and even the U.S. Senate. It was part of a partisan shift that occurred across the country states that have long been red.  

In short, any prudent Republican should view last Tuesday as a sign that when the GOP plows ahead with these so-called “conservative principles” the loss of five legislative seats may likely be only the beginning.

Oklahomans are sick and tired of being among the worst in the nation for public education outcomes, healthcare, incarceration rates and pretty much everything else that impacts people’s quality of life. They’re sick of politically connected people getting special treatment. They’re sick of officials diverting public money to pay for private education while watching their local schools subsiding on scraps. They’re sick of lawmakers putting measures on the ballot in an attempt to change things voters have already put in the state Constitution. 

And they’re exhausted by the continuing increase in prices of everything from their insurance to a tank of gas to nearly everything on their grocery list.

They want our state and federal leaders to focus on what actually matters. They want them to espouse the now ancient Republican value of local government control, which means to stop screwing around with revenue streams that run the level of government we all see close.

They want smaller class sizes and better public schools.

They want this to be a state where college graduates want to remain five years after graduating. Right now, an increasing number are fleeing for greener pastures, which is not a good sign.

To do that will mean making financial investments, not cutting taxes.

Because it will cost money to keep hospitals open, fix our roads and bridges, retain quality teachers and cut class sizes. 

They’ll need to respect voters who voted to expand Medicaid. 

And they’ll have to prove that they listen to the voters that put them there instead of the lobbyists funding their campaigns or an out-of-touch future governor who casually spent almost $13 million of his own money on the election like it was nothing while most people are struggling in this economy. 

There is time to divert that freight train of doom, but to do that Republicans have to look a little bit deeper than the fact they again won all statewide offices Tuesday night. And they’ll have to move away from their hero-like worship of President Donald Trump, stop being his backup band the Trumpettes and think about what our state really needs.

If Republicans can’t do that, in two years, their legislative losses are going to be more than five seats. In four years, it could cost them even more: congressional or statewide offices (Remember: Bice initially ran for a congress in a district that a Democrat won in 2018.).

Oklahoma voters are tired of losing. They want to be winners just like the GOP candidates were last week.

And if things aren’t getting better in two or four years, they will have no choice but to blame those so-called Republican “conservative principles” and the officials who purport to espouse them.