Come election time, most of the attention — and money — is lavished on the so-called top-of-the-ticket offices. These are statewide offices, which this year include governor and both U.S. senators.
But other statewide offices are contested just as fiercely, usually with less money and more difficult explanations of what it is they do.
This can be an advantage for the enterprising candidate with some money behind him or her, such as the person campaigning for state auditor and inspector on the pledge to protect the southern border and patrol the schools for child predators. It sounds good, even if it isn’t what the job actually entails.
Polling over the years consistently shows that voters tend to make decisions on these contests very late, and often on scant information.
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Besides governor, Oklahoma elects 10 statewide officials: lieutenant governor, attorney general, auditor and inspector, superintendent of public instruction, treasurer, insurance commissioner, labor commissioner, and three corporation commissioners.
Except two corporation commissioners, all are up for election this year — although Insurance Commissioner Glen Mulready is unopposed for a second term.
Oklahoma used to elect a lot more state officers: commissioner of charities and corrections, secretary of state, a state auditor AND a state inspector, president of the state Board of Agriculture, chief clerk of the Supreme Court, a state mine inspector and four assistants, and — briefly — the state printer.
Labor commissioner was dropped from the ballot for awhile but was brought back.
Attorney general and state superintendent are getting the most attention of these other state offices this year. The World previews of those contests are published separately.
Here’s a look at the others, all of which are for registered Republicans only.
Lieutenant governor: No primary. Republican incumbent Matt Pinnell has two general election opponents.
Insurance commissioner: Incumbent Glen Mulready unopposed. No primary or general election.
Corporation commissioner: Probably the most underappreciated officers in state government, corporation commissioners exercise extraordinary authority over almost every aspect of state commerce. The three-member commission’s responsibilities include oil and gas regulation, pipelines, railroads, investor-owned utilities and motor carriers.
A vacancy has drawn four candidates to the Republican primary: term-limited state Sen. Kim David, former state Rep. Todd Thomsen, pipeline union organizer Justin Hornback and retiree Harold Spradling.
Based on donor lists from Oklahoma Ethics Commission filings, the race appears to be a contest between oil and gas interests with Hornback a wild card and Spradling along for the ride.
David is backed by the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma, whose membership includes some of the state’s largest oil patch players. Its chairman is Blu Halsey of Continental Resources, and its board includes representatives from Chesapeake and Devon.
As a lawmaker, David, 61, has also been deeply involved in promoting natural gas-produced hydrogen fuel, which is a priority of Williams and others in the oil and gas sector.
David’s donor list includes Continental, Houston-based Enbridge, the Hilliary Communications family of southwestern Oklahoma, Devon founder Larry Nichols and his wife, Polly Nichols, Phillips 66, Unit Corp., Koch Industries, Marathon Oil, ONEOK, wind power company Nextera, and Continental Resources founder Harold Hamm.
David is a real estate property manager in Wagoner County.
The core support for Thomsen, a 55-year-old Sapulpa native who has lived in Ada for many years, seems to come from smaller independent operators, some of whom belong to the Oklahoma Energy Producers Association, an organization of traditional vertical well investors.
OEPA’s officers and board include former Tulsa Mayor Dewey Bartlett Jr., Tulsa attorney Lee Levinson and Ada oilman Mike Cantrell.
Thomsen was a University of Oklahoma punter in the 1980s and a Fellowship of Christian Athletes staffer for 30 years.
Hornback, 38, is a pipeline welder and union organizer. He has not filed any reports with the Ethics Commission and says he’s running a “$0 campaign.” He has been out on the stump, though, and polling from earlier this month gave him 16% of the primary vote compared to 12% each for Thomsen and David.
Spradling, 88, reported putting $7,000 of his own money into a campaign fund but not spending any of it.
The same poll that listed Hornback at 16% also found just over half of Republican voters undecided on this race.
Auditor and inspector: Unlike corporation commissioners, state auditors don’t have corporate donors to tap into for campaign funds. If they do their job right, auditors can make important people mad.
That’s happened here, with anonymous sources putting hundreds of thousands of dollars into knocking out Republican incumbent Cindy Byrd. Byrd’s office has documented several questionable uses of public funds, including tens of millions of dollars given to Epic Charter Schools.
Byrd’s only opponent in the primary is Republican Steve McQuillen, a retired midlevel Tulsa Public Schools administrator. McQuillen is not an accountant and does not seem to have auditing experience. His TPS job involved managing fixed assets. The primary will decide the winner of the office.
Byrd has been endorsed by Gov. Kevin Stitt.
Treasurer: This primary took a weird turn when one of the candidates, David Hooten, resigned as Oklahoma County clerk after audio surfaced in which he laid out bizarre plans for a “staff outing” and said genetic modification made him immune to alcohol.
Coincidentally, one of the other candidates is known for his teetotaling opposition to alcohol.
Term-limited state Rep. Todd Russ, R-Cordell, spent a good part of his time in the Legislature fighting easier access to booze. He also is known for supporting a near-total ban on abortion and looking out for the interests of small towns and western Oklahomans.
Besides his time in the Legislature, Russ’ chief qualification for the job is a banking career of more than 30 years, including president and chief executive officer of Washita State Bank.
Opposing Russ is former state Sen. and Tax Commissioner Clark Jolley of Edmond.
Jolley chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee during his 12 years in the state Senate; later, he served as state secretary of finance for the final year of Gov. Mary Fallin’s term. Stitt appointed Jolley to the Oklahoma Tax Commission in March 2017.
In another coincidence, Jolley was the Senate author of some of the alcohol modernization bills that Russ opposed.
Alcohol, though, should not be an issue for state treasurer. The job principally involves receiving, depositing, disbursing and managing state funds and overseeing a few programs such as the unclaimed property fund.
Labor commissioner: Perhaps the least understood of the state offices, the labor commissioner oversees a small hodgepodge of duties ranging from inspection of boilers and carnival rides to recovering unpaid wages. Its primary purpose is workplace safety, for which it administers a number of free training programs.
The incumbent, Leslie Osborn, is a former legislator with a background in agriculture and small business. Osborn has a reputation for being something of a maverick among Republicans and says government should be focused on efficiency and effectiveness — not, as she puts it, “salvation of souls.”
Stitt has endorsed Osborn’s chief primary opponent, term-limited state Rep. Sean Roberts, R-Hominy. Roberts’ legislative career has been marked by hard lines on guns, abortion and elections, including an effort since 2020 to require every voter in the state to re-register.
Also on the ballot is Keith Swinton, a Norman postal worker who also ran for the position in 2018.
Featured video: Oklahoma State Auditor Cindy Byrd on Epic criminal charges
