Monday, June 29, 2026
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Rep. Kevin Hern, candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks at the Oklahoma Republican Party headquarters, Tuesday, June 16, 2026, in Oklahoma City.
U.S. Rep. Kevin Hern handily won Oklahoma’s Republican nomination for U.S. Senate on Tuesday, while the fight for a new governor kicked started in the highly conservative state, with Republicans Gentner Drummond and Mark Mazzei moving on to a runoff.
Both Hern and Mazzei had his backing in the primary, testing President Donald Trump’s standing as kingmaker of the Republican Party once again, as they sought to win open fights for two of Oklahoma’s biggest posts. With nearly all votes reported, Attorney General Drummond held a slim lead over Mazzei, a former state lawmaker.
Republicans were choosing their chosen successor to outgoing Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt and a candidate for the Senate seat last held by Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin in the primary. Democrats have not won an Oklahoma Senate seat since 1990.
Trump backed Hern even before Mullin was approved as a successor for fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and Hern’s biggest possible GOP competitors sat on the sidelines of the Senate race. Hern won over 50% of the primary vote, avoiding a runoff.
“I’ve been in the House and worked on trade and energy, and so I have experience,” he told reporters after a strong win, striking a relatively bipartisan tone. He promised to be a “voice for conservative principles and Oklahoma ideologies” in the Senate and that he already has contacts with senators.
“We’ve got a lot of friends in a lot of different states, blue states even,” Hern remarked.
Trump endorsed Mazzei last month in a wild contest that also includes other heavyweights such as former Oklahoma House Speaker Charles McCall and Chip Keating, a former state public safety director and son of a two-term governor.
At his watch party, Drummond told reporters he thought a runoff would follow Trump’s endorsement of Mazzei, and wondered whether Trump may change his mind, saying “who knows?”
Mr. Mazzei did get a bump, but now he's got to earn the rest," Drummond said.
On his Truth Social platform on Monday, Trump re-endorsed Mazzei. 'Wow,' is all I can say," Mazzei told supporters on Tuesday night.
“Nobody thought this was possible,” he continued, “when we started this adventure 18 months ago. The political insiders declared we had no shot. “We started at zero, but who in here really had faith we could get the job done and get into the runoff? You did.”
Mazzei also poured his own money into his campaign – close to $10.9 million, or roughly 95% of the $11.5 million he raised, according to campaign finance disclosures. Drummond spent $2.5 million of his own money toward raising around $7.2 million. Together, Drummond, Mazzei, Keating and McCall invested $22.5 million of their own money into their campaigns, or 72% of their combined haul of more than $31 million.
The winner of the GOP runoff will face the Democratic nominee, Oklahoma House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson, who cruised to victory in Tuesday’s primary.
Two of Oklahoma’s marquee elections are sparking a political free-for-all in the heavily Republican state. Stitt named Republican energy executive Alan Armstrong to fill Mullin’s Senate seat for this year, but state law prevented him from running for a full term.
Hern will face the winner of a Democratic runoff in November between nurse and community activist N’Kiyla Thomas and attorney and priest Jim Priest.
Stitt is concluding his second four-year term and is not eligible to serve a third under the state constitution, leaving the governor’s race open. Trump has appeared to want him gone.
Trump’s ire was drawn earlier this year by Stitt, who heads the National Governors Association after a dispute over invitations to White House events at the group’s annual convention. The backlash led Trump to criticize Stitt on social media as a “RINO” — Republican in Name Only.
