KGOU Election Series; Midterm Election Preview

Good evening, I'm Keith Gaddy, the chair of the political science department at the University of Oklahoma, and this is special coverage of Oklahoma's 2014 midterm elections. I'm joined by Oklahoma Watch State Capitol reporter M. Scott Carter, KGOU's Kate Carlton Greer, and e-capital news director Sean Ashley. Today we'll discuss the major statewide races for governor, state superintendent of public instruction, and just how much of a factor the controversial common core standards will be in tomorrow's election. It's the first time the teachers in more than a decade or so have come to the Capitol when a race tell, and they did it loudly. Later this half hour will also look at some of the down-ticket races for several competitive state legislative seats. Whoever wins will give us our first Asian lawmaker that we've ever had at the Capitol. That's all coming up on KGOU's special coverage of the 2014 midterm elections in Oklahoma. But first, the news. The election season is upon us.

I'm Keith Gaddy, chair of the political science department at the University of Oklahoma, joined by Scott Carter of Oklahoma Watch, Sean Ashley of e-capital, and KGOU's own Kate Carlton Greer. Welcome everybody. Thanks. Thanks. So, less than 36 hours, we're going to hopefully have some results in. We have a variety of races on the ballot. The top two that have been holding the attention of the public, though, are the superintendent of public instruction race and the governor's race here in the state. Governor Mary Fallon is seeking re-election to a second four-year term, and she's opposed by a man who was previously a little-known state representative from Rush Springs, Oklahoma, state representative Joe Dorman. Scott Carter, who's the favorite in this race and why? Well, I think the governor's been the favorite for a long time, because she's went in last year. She was pulling in the high 60s, low 70s, she's got a bunch of money, and Republicans control everything from the governor's ship on down. But I don't know whether that's going to stay there, Sean. What do you think?

All right. I think Scott's right, but what we've seen since this campaign began back toward the first of the years that Governor Fallon is not as popular today as she was a year ago. The most recent polling from Bill Shappard shows her in this election with approximately 50% of the vote, 48% to 50% and representative Dorman down in the lower 40s. The interesting thing about that is her number has stayed consistent. It's been flat throughout the entire campaign, while representative Dorman has seen his support increase. People often talk about momentum going into election day. I'm not going to say Joe Dorman's going to knock her off for many of the factors Scott mentioned, but he's made her work for it more than I think she planned on having to do. Kate, I mean, you've been out there talking to people. Do you get a sense of momentum when you talk to the public and the elites out there? Oh, absolutely.

I think you see a couple of things. Fallon is definitely leading, but Dorman is picking up his pace and he's out there pounding pavement as hard as he can. But what's interesting is there's still a bit of undecided voters, and I think those will swing toward Dorman, but I think you also reach a point of diminishing return almost in this race. Okay. Why is this governor vulnerable? I mean, Mary Fallon is a governor in a state where we've been cutting taxes where the economy has been growing. We've had a recovery with jobs, energy production has been up. How did the governor get in this position? I haven't a fight for reelection. I think part of that comes from Governor Fallon and the teachers got crosswise pretty early on. And if you go back to March of this year when the teachers had a rally at the Capitol, you had to have been around the Capitol in the 1990s when Henry Belman was governor in the past and education and tax hike reform bill called House Bill 2 and 17. And there was controversy over that and the teachers went and rallied for that bill. And there were about 12 or 15,000 teachers who hit the Capitol then.

Well, this year there were probably twice that number, and that's what I resemble. This is the first time the teachers in more than a decade or so have come to the Capitol in a race tail and they did it loudly, John. And I think there's the issue of education. And there are also those other issues like Scott mentioned in terms of tax cuts. But let's keep in mind for four years, there has been this tax cut rhetoric from the governor. And she has not actually reduced the individual income tax. The current piece of legislation would not take effect until January 1 of 2016. So she's yet to accomplish that goal. There was even a tax cut under Democrat Brad Henry, well, he was governor, but a Republican governor has yet to actually implement one. Additionally, there is the rhetoric and then the result with the handling of the gross production tax revenue. So for some voters, the idea of cutting taxes against the backdrop of 25,000 teachers showing up at the Capitol doesn't sit well.

And I think those two things are our budding heads and when she hasn't fully delivered on the individual income tax, there may be some Republicans who sit out or consider representative dormant. And I think you're seeing that. I don't think that Fallon has gained the Republican support that she typically has in the past. She's losing some there. And I think you're seeing dormant run an anti-Fallon campaign. You're seeing him pair her with Janet Brisi, who isn't even on the ballot. But man, it seems like she is this race. I have said throughout much of this election, Scott's heard this from me several times that early on, Governor Fallon was running for reelection. She was not running against Joe Dorman, but Joe Dorman was definitely running against Mary Fallon and at the same time against Janet Brisi. So you're exactly right. Well, the governor is trying to tie representative dormant with the president. So you're seeing the Democratic version of this and the Republican version of it. They're both being tied to another unpopular public official.

And it just depends on how successful whoever's the most successful at doing that may end up coming out on top. And I remember talking to Joe Dorman in January. And I told him he was insane for running. And I, but be honest, I did. I told him, you know, Mary Fallon's quite popular. She's got all sorts of money. You're just going to go out there and get trounce. I had to apologize for that the other day. And look at it. Look at his campaign filing. His latest campaign filing shows him in about a month time raising more than $800,000. It's incredible. Yeah. Okay. So, and this is interesting because he's been raising money dollar for dollar with the governor since summer. But not that much airtime he's putting up maybe 750, maybe a thousand gross rating points in all the big markets around the state. So where's the money going? Well, I know he's doing radio. And I, if he's smart, if it's not going on TV and radio, it's going in and get out the vote effort.

That's, I think that's right. And when I was out with him on the campaign trail, he does have quite a staff with him. I think he has close to 12 people on staff. And so you have to pay those people in addition to all the volunteers that you have. Brad Henry ran his group of control campaign with five staff. That was it. So I mean, this is, I'm really wondering if they're not putting the money into GO TV. Oh, I, I think that very well, maybe the case. And we should have seen that coming into this weekend with, with them urging people to get out, then we'll definitely see it on Tuesday as, as they do everything they can. And at the local level, what that often turns into is even taking people to the polls. Well, I saw a sign at his campaign headquarters and it made me chuckle. I was down there one time to talk to him for a piece I was working on. And there was a sign just stuck against a window that said, yard signs don't vote. Make those calls. And it was urging all his volunteers like, you have to only yard sign big deal, but get them to say they're going to go vote, get them to get, get doing that GO TV effort. And it, it made sense if, if you're going to get all those teachers and all those people

who claim they were so upset, you've got to get them to the polls. And if that's what they're focused on, they're being smart. And the thing is, so ground is usually a Republican hallmark in the state, right? Ground game, contacting game. Do we have evidence of an expansive ground game by the Republicans? I would say not so far. And here we are on Monday saying that going into Tuesday. In the past, they've been very well known for that 72 hour campaign. It was that 72 hour campaign that ate away at the legislature that eventually led to them holding all the top offices in the state. But I'm not sure it's there this time. And that very well may work against them. Now, speaking of top offices, the other big office that's really in everybody's, on everybody's radar screen is the superintendent of public instruction, right? We have Dr. Cox and we have Joy Hofmeister up against each other, Joy Hofmeister, the vanquisher of Janet Berese in the Republican primary. And purportedly the front runner, but the most recent sooner poll, the Bill Shaper put out show put a two point lead to two point lead within the margin of error.

So really you're talking about a dead heat there as sample of a thousand and actually the number that Shaper did for Oklahoma poll for the Tulsa world this week and showed a similar margin. So we have a pretty tight race or why is this thing so tight? I think anybody sitting around this table would tell you that if you're going to win an election in Oklahoma, the one group you have to move is the Republican female voter. That's the one that's in play and that group is very focused on education. They'll they'll put up with some of the rhetoric about guns and taxes and stuff, but they want their kids to go to good schools. And you lose their loyalty, you're in trouble. And I think the GOP has lost the loyalty of the Republican women on education. So this is a PTA mom election. I think it is. I really do think it is a PTA mom election. And I think it's it goes to that fight over common court goes to that fight over testing. It goes to all the controversy that has descended upon the Department of Education and there

has been plenty of controversy. I mean, we think back to the beginning of Janet Barisi's time in office, she came in with a board that was against her. She's in an awkward any any superintendents in an awkward position. They're elected and have to deal with a board appointed by the governor. She came in with a board that was a that was against her. The legislature and the governor amended the law throughout the board gave her a board that included Joy Hofmeister and then all of the issues Scott has talked about over the years related to supposedly improving educational standards in Oklahoma have not set well with the teachers. I'm not set well with the students and have reverberated throughout the state. Is it herking Joy Hofmeister at all that Janet Barisi has not gone away? You know, I thought that would happen. I thought that people would pair Barisi and Hofmeister together. Although you see it in the closeness of the race, people are frustrated with Barisi and they don't want her in office, but they're realizing that Hofmeister is not Barisi.

Well, and yeah, the Hofmeister defeated Barisi and I think that keeps some type of separation there. Now, the Democrats are trying to say, well, if you elect Hofmeister, it's just Barisi light. But it's I think it's kind of hard to really make that stretch at this point. But real quickly, going back to Hofmeister defeating Barisi, what was really interesting to me there was the fact that, I mean, it said that many teachers switched their voter registration to be able to vote against Barisi. And so it will be interesting to see what happens with those voters come tomorrow. You know, I thought that was a myth until I read a story by a very enterprising reporter in Inid, Oklahoma, Dale Dunwall, Dale Dinwall did an abs, I'm jealous of that story. I really am. He did an absolutely terrific story where he went and looked at those registration records and then talked to teacher and confirmed that teachers were actually going and changing registration to vote against the school superintendent.

That's Scott Carter and we're talking about what to expect during tomorrow's 2014 midterm elections. More of our special coverage right after this short break. I'm University of Oklahoma political scientist Keith Gaddy and you're listening to KGOU. This is KGOU's special preview coverage of tomorrow's midterm elections. I'm University of Oklahoma political science department, Chair Keith Gaddy and this half hour I'm talking with Oklahoma White State Capitol reporter M. Scott Carter, E. Capitol's news director Sean Ashley and KGOU's Kate Carlton Greer. Now in the previous segment we have been talking about statewide racism, the state superintendent selection and one of the questions we had was how voters would mobilize for this election

and Sean actually has some interesting data to bring to bear on this question Sean. Well what I was doing was looking back at the last time we had a Republican governor Frank Keating running for reelection and of course that was in 1998. In that election of course Frank Keating was reelected. He got 58% of the vote to Laura Boyd's 41% but what I found interesting in looking that is that Sandy Garrett the Democratic candidate for superintendent of public instruction actually received 10,000 more votes than Frank Keating did in his reelection bid. I think that illustrates the point Scott was talking about and Kate has mentioned as well of the importance of education to voters in this state but that year Laura Boyd was not the same candidate that Joe Dorman was and this I think could play a role in the final results when we look at the governor's race and of course in the superintendents race itself. I agree with you 100% I think the other thing that kind of buttresses Dorman on this is

remember he was out there and he's talked about it for years but he was out there very visibly right after last May's tornado talking about schools and public safety and I think maybe voters look at that like well at least he had a plan to do something. And it was a plan he's had for a while it wasn't like he developed a plan. Joe Dorman has been talking about tornado since 2006. Let's move on from the statewide races and let's get in the weeds a little bit let's talk a little bit about the state legislative races just to give you some context Republicans come into this election holding over three quarters of seats in both legislative chambers. Over two thirds of the legislature has already been reelected either in the primary or the general election the prospect of a democratic takeover of the state house or the state Senate is no. Since 1990 Democrats have lost seats in both chambers of the state legislature every election except for 2002 and the old mantra among Democrats and Scott I know you remember

this is well we only lost four seats we have 18 seats to give before we lose our majority and then they kept giving and giving and giving. So where's the action in the state legislative race since this year what are you guys watching? Well what I'm really interested in is the I think it's district 40 for the Senate and the race between Irvin and John handy Edwards because that will either one whoever wins will give us our first Asian lawmaker that we've ever had at the Capitol which will be very interesting considering the Asian population makes about two percent of Oklahoma's population and we've never had an Asian lawmaker so it will be interesting to see what happens there. I think that's a terrific race it's in far northwest Oklahoma City actually it's the Senate district where I live and Ian has been very active haven't seen John handy Edwards as much but I hear from him on the telephone but they're both both sides are working hard in that fight I think the tip of the hat's probably going to end up with Ian that's

going to be a hard hard district to turn but there's a possibility there. I would agree and Ian is the Republican for that district and he also is an anesthesiologist so this will be his first term at 23rd and Lincoln. Another race that's been attracting a lot of attention is the re-election effort of state Senator Ralph Shorty on the south side of Oklahoma City he's being challenged by an attractive Latino candidate by the name of Michael Brooks Jimenez who has been out campaigning extensively in the community and voter mobilizing what's going on with this race. Well I think for Senator Shorty from what I've heard from some Republicans is that he was a little late launching his re-election campaign was not out there like some of them even felt that he should be and you're right he faces someone who is popular within that district well known within that district and because of some of the issues such as immigration may be more palatable to some members of that community. That is SD-44 it's been a contentious district for a while that is actually Debbie left

which is old seat that Shorty came in four years ago. Shorty has been very controversial also is wanted to double down on immigration and offer some real harsh anti-immigration policies like civil forfeiture taking cars things like that. There's been a lot of pushback in that district that's the center of the Latino population in the metro area and that spills into that district and so I Brooks Jimenez is an immigration attorney he's outraced Shorty by about $60,000 and he's really serious on that race and he's given Shorty a run for his money. I was just going to say that it's interesting because that district I think there are more Democrat registered voters than there are Republicans and just looking at the demographics there like Scott said it is largely Hispanic so it will be interesting to see how that plays out tomorrow but the flip side of that is during midterm elections Democrats don't

turn out to vote nearly as much as Republicans do. Yeah and you know the funny thing with that district is it could be worse for our shorty during the redistricting there was an effort to reorient Hispanic voters out of that constituency and into the seat that at the time was held by State Senator Andrew Rice. So what we're seeing going on here in part is a continued transformation of South Oklahoma City and I mean to be honest I've spent some time up there doing field work on another project it's not the transformation people think it was underway it is a very impressive and dynamic economic growth and reestablishment of that community that's taking place. And any politician down there was going to have to be in touch with that business community and that voting block in the long run. Well and Sean mentioned that earlier he said you mentioned how Senator Shorty hasn't been as visible as he has been previously. Brooks Minnes has been I've covered some in that district and Brooks Minnes has been very very visible and he's been I think every time I turn around he was attending a public

meeting or speaking in a group or things like that. A lot of this depends on the candidate too and he's very likable he's approachable and if the other guy isn't showing up much somebody's getting a message out. Okay now one last Senate race that we should touch on is Senate District 6 where freshman Senator Josh Prasheen is in quite a dog fight with Joe B. Hill that well why is Prasheen in so much trouble. What's really interesting about this race this is in this is in the Choctaw Nation and the incumbent is a member of the Choctaw Nation and he was very visibly supported by the tribe four years ago. This time around the tribe cut him loose. The chief of the Choctaws introduced Joe B. Hill at a fundraiser and or the former chief the outgoing chief Greg Pyle and John the bricking got crosswise with the tribe he got crosswise with a number of public officials down in his district and they this is a result of that

and Senator Brickene is the author of House bill the Senate author of House bill 3399 that repealed Common Core that has not been well received in the business community which supports tougher educational standards including Common Core. He was his opponent Joe B. Hill was the only Democrat endorsed by the state chamber so that gives you an idea of where he stands in terms of the business community. Brickene too was late starting his campaign he tried to make light of that with a humorous video I hear it felt flat among his constituents so he may face some problems. Joe Hill has been on the ground from day one he quit his job to run for this office and this is what happens when you have someone who's really really focused that Brickene is not going to outworking not at all and and Hill has been why he's probably walked in all of southeastern Oklahoma at least once.

Well and he's outraced Brickene by I think almost $40,000 this cycle and that's a lot of money when you're talking about a Senate district. Well guys we have more races than we have time to talk about I appreciate you all coming in to discuss the upcoming with myself and with the voters that are out there listening. You've been listening to the special election preview here on KGOU with M. Scott Carter. Nice to be here. Sean Ashley. It's great. Kate Carlton Greer. And I'm Keith Gaddy. And listening to KGOU.