THE TRUMP CARD

Alex Gladden

The Oklahoman USA TODAY NETWORK

As the race for Oklahoma governor heats up, leading Republican candidates are working to convince voters that they are the most aligned with President Donald Trump.

The candidates all appeared at a forum Thursday, Feb. 19, at Randall University, a small Christian school in Moore. The forum was an early chance for voters to hear from most of the party’s contenders.

In a heavily Republican state like Oklahoma, the party’s primary race often predicts the outcome of the general election. In this case, it could determine who will be the state’s first new governor in eight years.

Each of the seven candidates at the forum said they backed key GOP platforms, such as further restricting abortion access. But support for Trump and his policies was perhaps the most popular and recurring message of the night.

“Well, I think Donald J. Trump is the best president I’ve ever seen in my lifetime,” said Charles McCall, the former speaker of the Oklahoma House.

Attorney General Gentner Drummond, former state Sen. Mike Mazzei and Chip Keating, the son of former Gov. Frank Keating, were among the other candidates at the event. A poll released Feb. 9 showed Drummond with a lead in the race, with McCall, Mazzei and Keating in a virtual tie for a distant second.

A poll found 81% of OK Republicans have a favorable view of Trump.

Three other Republican governor hopefuls — former state Sen. Jake Merrick, entrepreneur Leisa Mitchell Haynes and small business owner Kenneth Sturgell — also took part in the forum. Steve Byas, a Randall University professor who organized the event, said the lone Democratic candidate in the race, House Democratic Leader Cyndi Munson, had been invited but declined to attend.

Just less than four months are left until the primary election on June 16. Should a runoff election for the primary be needed, it will be Aug. 25. The final race against Munson and independent candidates will be Nov. 3.

At the forum, all of the candidates said they support Trump’s controversial immigration policies, and Drummond pointed to his office’s work partnering with federal agents.

Keating cited his experience as a former state trooper.

“President Trump is spot-on with what he’s doing on these policies,” Keating said about immigration enforcement.

Merrick, too, cited his devotion to Trump’s mass deportations.

“If they’re not here legally, they need to be deported. It’s that simple,” Merrick said.

Backing Trump has been a winning strategy in Oklahoma, where support for the president is especially strong. A poll issued by CHS & Associates on Feb. 12 found 81% of Oklahoma Republicans have a favorable view of Trump.

During the forum, some candidates appeared to distance themselves from the record of Gov. Kevin Stitt, who has faced criticism from Trump in recent weeks.

Mazzei, who was Stitt’s first appointed secretary of finance, questioned Stitt’s comments about Trump’s escalation of ICE activity in Minneapolis. Stitt, with the National Governors Association, released a statement asking for the president to reset his strategy after the agents shot and killed a second American citizen.

McCall worked closely with Stitt when he led the Oklahoma House. But he, too, sounded critical of Stitt’s time in office.

“Where the failure has been in this state has been in the executive branch,” McCall said.

Stitt has yet to endorse a candidate. Several candidates, including Drummond, McCall and Keating, focused on foreign businesses owning land in Oklahoma, which they connected to criminal activity.

Drummond said as attorney general, he has targeted illegal marijuana growers in the state. He said Chinese and Mexican citizens largely own these farms.

“We’re breaking the back of organized crime, and we’re deporting the illegals in our state,” Drummond said.

McCall vowed to seize foreign-owned land and auction it back to Oklahomans.

“It’s a simple solution,” McCall said of his proposal.

Most candidates made broad promises to make improvements in education, where Oklahoma’s K-12 system ranks among the worst in the nation.

Keating said he will appoint a statewide literacy director to oversee improving Oklahoma children’s reading scores. He said he modeled this idea after Mississippi’s strategy that lifted the state from the bottom of education rankings.

“We can’t be 50th here in Oklahoma anymore,” Keating said.

Sturgell emphasized the need to remove books with sexual content from schools and public libraries.

Mazzei said he would tackle issues in education with Trump-like tenacity.

“We’ve got schools that are a mess,” Mazzei said.

Keating, Sturgell, Mazzei and McCall voiced interest in carrying on the fight to lower taxes in the state, which has been a key issue for Stitt. Merrick and Mitchell Haynes called for less government regulation altogether.

“I believe in limited government because total government is socialism, and that leads to communism,” Mitchell Haynes said.

Keating said the tax structure needs to be modernized and completely revamped. He blamed the tax code on why Devon Energy left the state.

Mazzei wants to reduce the income tax from 4.5% to 2% and abolish property taxes for seniors. Eventually, he would like to move the state to collecting zero income taxes.

McCall said he led the Legislature to pass the largest tax cut in state history. He vowed that he was not done with tax reform and would like to eliminate the income tax.