OKLAHOMA CITY — Three eastern Oklahoma Democrats are battling to keep the state’s Second Congressional District in its party’s hands this year.
The seat is currently held by U.S. Rep. Dan Boren, a Muskogee Democrat who surprisingly announced last summer that he wouldn’t seek a fifth term in office and instead planned to return to work in the private sector.
“It’s kind of the last vestige of Democratic representation, as far as on a national level,” said Oklahoma Democratic Party Chairman Wallace Collins, “so we certainly want to hang on to that seat and keep it in the Democratic column, and we realize that Republicans would like nothing more to take it away from us and deny us any Democratic representation in Washington.”
The 26-county district is heavily Democratic. It stretches from the Red River border with Texas in the south to foothills of the Ozark Mountains in the northeast, including Oklahoma’s borders with Kansas, Arkansas and Missouri.
Democrats seeking the post include Earl Everett, 78, a retired schoolteacher from Fort Gibson; Wayne Herriman, 59, the owner of a Muskogee-based seed company; and Rob Wallace, 48, a former state and federal prosecutor from Fort Gibson.
The six Republicans are three-term state Rep. George Faught, 49, of Muskogee; business owner Markwayne Mullin, 34, of Westville; former Edmond state Rep. Wayne Pettigrew, 49, of McAlester; attorney and former Tishomingo Mayor Dustin Rowe, 36; Fort Gibson minister Dwayne Thompson, 54; and retired Marine Corps officer Dakota Wood, 49.
The winners of the June 26 primary election, and the Aug. 28 runoff election if no candidate captures more than 50 percent of the vote in the primary, will join independent Michael Fulks of Heavener in the Nov. 6 general election.
Boren vowed not to endorse any of the candidates seeking to replace him, and he said either party could win the seat, despite a more than 2-to-1 voter registration for Democrats.
“It’s going to be quite a race. I would say Republicans or Democrats shouldn’t take it for granted,” Boren told The Associated Press. “I would say the voters are conservative, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re Republican.
“They’re overwhelmingly Democrat, but they’re populists. They don’t like someone telling them what to do.”
Despite the 63 percent Democratic voter registration in the district, Republicans have had success in the district. U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Muskogee, held the post for three terms before stepping down in 2000 as a result of self-imposed term limits. Republican presidential candidate John McCain defeated President Barack Obama in the district by a nearly 2-to-1 margin in 2008.
And while the Democratic candidates acknowledge Obama is not tremendously popular in the district, they maintain voters won’t hesitate to vote for a Democrat who fits the district.
“I can tell you they’ve always elected the person, not the party,” said Herriman, a lifelong resident of the district who started the Sunburst Seed Co. in Muskogee in 1984. “And I understand what we need to get this economy rolling and put people to work.”
Herriman said he plans to focus on policies related to three critical assets of eastern Oklahoma: agriculture, energy and water.
“You generate jobs from things that are your strength. Energy, in particular, is one area where we’re not even touching the hem of the government,” Herriman said. “There’s a lot of fear out there right now. The people that I talk to, when I talk about the future of our state and opportunities for young people, those are things that generate optimism, and that’s something that’s hard to find right now.”
Wallace said he intends to go to Washington and focus on representing the district rather than ensuring he’s re-elected.
“I think people here are clamoring for someone who will go to Washington and look for solutions as opposed to engaging in partisan bickering,” said Wallace, a former district attorney in LeFlore and Latimer counties who stepped down as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Oklahoma to run for the seat. “I think their impression is that Congress has become self-serving instead of trying to serve the country, that scoring political points is a lot more important than helping people who are struggling out here in the real world.”
Wallace had raised about $291,000, according to his most recent filing with the Federal Election Commission, while Herriman raised $310,000, including a $195,000 personal loan to his campaign.
Everett, the third Democrat in the race, had not reported raising any money and said he believed Wallace and Herriman were too conservative.
“Those two people who indicated they were going to run for Congress just didn’t meet my idea of the kind of representative I wanted,” said Everett, a longtime educator who taught in schools in Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. “They were too conservative to be running on the Democratic ticket.”
Everett acknowledged he faces an uphill battle winning the primary, especially with his position on taxes.
“They’re going to have to be raised sooner or later, so that might be one of my downfalls,” he said.
Man Who Disrupted Flight Ranted About CIA
Feds: 7-Eleven Stores Exploited Immigrants
Fla. Teen Catches Ride With Whale Shark
G8 Leaders Huddle on Syria
Raw: Obama, Putin Meet at G8
Iran's Rowhani Urges 'Path of Moderation'
Daughter: Mandela Doing 'Very Well'
Investigators Probe Origin of Colo. Wildfire
Ex-NFL Star Chad Johnson Out of Jail
'Game of Thrones' Boosts N. Ireland
Raw: Prince Philip Leaves Hospital After Surgery
Zimmerman Jury Selection Turns to Media Exposure
Raw: FBI Meets Plane After Poison Threat
Family Tweets Say Kim Kardashian Gives Birth
US, EU Leaders Announce Free Trade Talks
