Independent candidates hope to shake up status quo, give Oklahoma voters alternative option

OKLAHOMA CITY – Frustration with mainstream political parties prompted a number of independents to file for office.

A little over a dozen candidates, many of whom are fed up with partisan divides, will appear as independents on Oklahoma’s general election ballot in November.

They hope their candidacy will give Oklahoma voters an alternative option to the candidates running as nominees for the state’s three recognized political parties.

For two decades, Oklahoma’s Republican and Democrat parties have “pitted neighbor against neighbor,” said Robert Brooks, one of three independents running for governor against Republican Mike Mazzei and Democrat Cyndi Munson. 

“They’ve stirred up race relations,” Brooks said of Republicans and Democrats. “They have stirred up all kinds of nonsense.”

People are hungry for leadership and unity, not division, he said.

As of Feb. 2, independents made up 20.4% of the state’s slightly more than 2.4 million voters, according to the Oklahoma State Election Board. 

Republicans composed 53.2% of Oklahoma voters while Democrats made up 25.3%. Almost 1% of voters identified as Libertarian.

Brooks, a Moore resident who has an insurance brokerage, said when he meets voters on the campaign trail and tells them he is an independent candidate, “they glow.”

“They will just grin,” he said. “They will just smile. It is like their whole body language changes.”

Melissa Elder, a mental health therapist from Moore, is a registered independent running for Senate District 24. She’ll face Republican Jon Painter and Democrat Jonathan Morales in November. 

Republican Darrell Weaver, the incumbent, decided not to seek reelection and after making a failed bid for lieutenant governor was named Cleveland County sheriff.

“I’m just fed up with things not happening, and I felt like I needed to take action,” Elder said. “Running for office was the only way that I could, you know, put some energy behind doing something instead of just complaining.”

She described independents’ political beliefs as “a mixed bag.”

“People leave parties and register as independents for all different kinds of reasons and have all different kinds of ideas about political ideology,” she said.

Elder, a former Democrat, said a lot of independents don’t see the party they align with as getting things done.

“We’ve opted out of playing that game,” she said.

Valentin Peña, a merchandiser for the Walton Corp. who lives in Lawton, said a dissatisfaction with politics at both the state and national level prompted him to run as an independent for Senate District 32. He’ll face Republican Curtis Erwin and Democrat Booker T. Newton. Incumbent Sen. Dusty Deevers, R-Elgin, lost his re-election bid in the primary.

“I was tired of seeing people not running on any of the policy positions I was looking for, so I decided to do it myself,” Peña said. “Because if there were no candidates I was going to be able to be willing to vote for, I was going to be a candidate I’d be willing to vote for.”

He said he hasn’t seen the progress he wanted from the current political system, which is dominated by Republicans and Democrats.

He also disagrees with the state’s closed partisan primary system, which restricts who can vote for candidates in those elections. In order to cast a ballot in a Republican, Democrat, or Libertarian primary, Oklahomans must be a registered voter of that party. Party leaders can decide to open the primary to registered independents. Democrats had previously opened their primaries to independents, but their primaries were closed this year.

“There’s no reason that we should have closed any kind of elections,” Peña said. “Who you decide to register as should not affect who you should be able to vote for.”

An initiative petition seeking to ask voters to open primaries was determined not to have collected enough valid signatures. But that decision is being challenged.

Like other independent candidates interviewed by Oklahoma Voice, Robert Henri said he is frustrated with the overarching role money plays in elections and believes there should be some tighter restrictions.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Henri, who is running for U.S. Representative in Oklahoma’s 5th Congressional District. 

Henri, an Edmond resident who runs a manufacturing facility, faces incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Stephanie Bice, Democrat Jena Nelson and fellow independent Austin Nieves.

Like other candidates, Henri said he is frustrated with the lack of progress under the current system and with the amount of money used to fund it.

“I feel like both sides are playing the same game,” Henri said. “They can scream and yell about their sides all they want, but at the end of the day, nothing is going to happen.”