Republicans top 50% of registered voters for first time
OKLAHOMA CITY – Voter registration in Oklahoma surged ahead of the record-setting statewide general election on November 3.
The State Election Board counted a net increase of more than 169,000 registered voters since January 15 and a net increase of nearly 53,000 in the month preceding the election.
The Election Board’s official pre-election voter registration statistics show the 2,259,113 registered voters on November 1 was the largest before a Presidential election since Oklahoma began tracking pre-election voter registration statistics in 2000.
In addition, registered Republicans now constitute more than half of Oklahoma’s registered voters for the first time. The last time a majority of voters belonged to an Oklahoma political party prior to a Presidential election was 16 years ago, on November 1, 2004, when Democrats constituted 51.3% of registered voters.
As of November 1, 2020, Republicans numbered 1,129,771, or 50.01% of the registered voters in Oklahoma. Democrats numbered 750,669, or 33.23% of the registered voters. Independents numbered 363,771 and constituted 16.10% of the voters. And the 14,902 Libertarians represented 0.66% of the registered voters.
“The surge in voter registrations is a clear indication that Oklahomans were highly interested in the 2020 general election,” said Paul Ziriax, Secretary of the State Election Board. “The new statistics also continue the decades-long growth trend for Republicans and Independents as a percentage of Oklahoma’s electorate.”
Oklahoma set a record for mail absentee ballots (280,799) and in-person absentee ‘early’ votes (167,031), and set a record for the most votes ever cast for President (1,558,627) in the history of this state, Ziriax said.
To no one’s surprise, President Trump coasted in Oklahoma.
The State Election Board reported that more than 710,000 Oklahomans voted a straight-party ticket in the general election.
Of those, 71% were Republican votes for Trump/Pence. In other words, 504,000 ballots, or roughly half of the 1,020,280 votes counted in Oklahoma for Trump, were straight-party Republican votes.
Of the remainder, 28% (about 198,800 ballots) were Democrat votes for Biden/Harris, who received a total of 503,890 votes in Oklahoma. The Libertarian ticket (Jorgensen/Cohen) got the remaining 1%, about 7,100 of the 24,731 votes they received in the election.
Among the Independent candidates, Kanye West got 5,597 votes; Jade Simmons, 3,654; and Brock Pierce, 2,547.
Trump captured 78% of the vote in rural Oklahoma counties, according to CSS Partners LLC. In southwestern Oklahoma, Trump received 69.6% of the vote.
Voter turnout statewide was 69%, said Tyler Powell, one of the partners in CSS Partners. Across Oklahoma, 74% of the voters in rural areas participated in the election, suburban turnout was 76% and urban turnout was 72%, Powell said.
Comanche County had the lowest voter turnout in the state, at 65%, CSS Partners reported. In the Ledger’s circulation area, Stephens County had the highest turnout at 73.5%
Corporation Commissioner Todd Hiett, R-Kellyville, was the leading vote-getter statewide. He received a little over 1.1 million votes in his bid for re-election to a second six-year term.
“No incumbent Republican who was on the ballot in November lost,” Powell noted.