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- The Oklahoma Democratic Party is an Oklahoma political party affiliated with the Democratic Party. Along with the Oklahoma Republican Party, it is one of the two major parties in Oklahoma politics. The party dominated local politics in Oklahoma almost since the days of early statehood in 1907 to 1994. In national politics, the party became a dominant force beginning with the presidential election of 1932 and the Franklin D. Roosevelt political re-alignment. From 1932 to 1994, the majority of members of Congress from Oklahoma have been Democrats, and of the 27 men and women who have been elected to the office of Governor of Oklahoma, 22 have been Democrats. However, the party has fared poorly since 1994; Democrats lost five out of six congressional races that year. Since then, they have won only a handful of seats, which they no longer hold. In response, the traditionally disorganized Oklahoma Democrats have taken steps to create a more organized state party, hiring a professional executive director in 1995. Even so, Democrats continued to lose ground in the 2000s, losing control of both the Oklahoma House of Representatives and the Oklahoma Senate. In 2008, Oklahoma gave the lowest percentage of any state's vote to national Democrat Barack Obama in the presidential election. As of January 15, 2021, there are 748,222 registered Democratic voters in Oklahoma. In the 2012 general election, the party was successful in defending all incumbents in the Oklahoma Legislature and defeating two Republican House members. In 2018, Kendra Horn defeated incumbent Republican congressman Steve Russell, to become the first Democrat elected to Congress from Oklahoma since 2010. She lost reelection to Republican challenger Stephanie Bice in 2020. (en)
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