Oklahoma Republican Party leaders take aim at Holt, Bynum, Osborn for support of open primary initiative

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Some Oklahoma Republican party leaders are questioning whether Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt, Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum and Labor Commissioner Leslie Osborn still belong in the party after voicing their support for a bipartisan-led initiative petition aiming to move Oklahoma to an open-primary election system.

News 4 reported earlier this week about a bi-partisan group seeking signatures for a initiative petition to get State Question 835 on the ballot.

If passed SQ 835 would move Oklahoma away from its current closed, partisan primary election system, to an open primary system, allowing all registered voters to cast primary ballots regardless of party affiliation.

Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt and Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum, both Republicans, came out this week in support of the movement.

Oklahoma Labor Commissioner Leslie Osborn, also a Republican, previously voiced support for an open primary system as well.

“And I think the evidence bears it out, you naturally get a better outcome,” Mayor Holt said while speaking about his support for open primaries on KFOR’s ‘FlashPoint’ in September.

Holt argued Oklahoma’s current system of closed partisan primary elections, in which voters are only allowed to vote in a party’s primary if they are a registered member of that party, produces candidates who pander the extremes, rather than candidates who appeal to the majority.

“You’re appealing, especially today, to a narrower and narrower slice of the electorate,” Holt said. “I often say that neither in Oklahoma City, nor the in the country, are people actually all that polarized. Maybe the extremes are. 15 percent at both ends. But there’s a 70 percent of people in the middle that just want to work together and get things done.”

It’s why this week, he threw his support behind the SQ835 ballot initiative proposal, to change Oklahoma’s primary system to something colloquially called a “jungle primary.”

In a jungle primary, no longer would each party run its own primary ballot, only open to registered party members.

Instead, candidates from every party would all appear together on one, single ballot with their party affiliation listed next to their name.

Every registered voter, regardless of their party affiliation, would be able to vote for one candidate.  

Then, the top two vote-getters would face off in the general election.

In September, Holt said, save for listing a candidate’s party next to their name, that’s the same system Oklahoma City and Tulsa use for their mayoral primaries.

“And people always look at Oklahoma City and Tulsa and say—for whatever success or failures you have, it sure seems like you’re electing mayors who unify people, that seem confident, that are well-liked across the political spectrum,” Holt said.

This week, Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum and Oklahoma Labor Commissioner Leslie Osborn, who—like Holt—are Republicans, also endorsed the initiative.

That led to Oklahoma state Republican Party chairman Nathan Dahm to send an email to Republican Party members this week, urging them to reach out Holt, Bynum and Osborn, and tell them to switch their affiliation to the Democratic Party.

Dahm likened an open primary system that would allow Democrats and Independents to possibly have an influence in the Republican primary to allowing an atheist to vote for who should be the pastor of a church.

OKGOP Executive Director Stan Stevens told News 4 state Republican Party leadership fundamentally disagree with the idea of opening primaries to anyone who isn’t a registered Republican.

He says if Holt, Bynum, Osborn or anyone else they support can’t win in a closed primary, that’s their own problem to fix.

“If you get in a Republican primary and you can't beat the candidate, the other candidate running, then it's just not resonating with the voters,” Stevens said. “I do think that the that in general this group is pushing this for that reason, though, that they want to move the party to the left by doing this, or at least moderate it.”

University of Central Oklahoma Political Science Professor Brett Sharp says, with how dominant the Republican party is in Oklahoma right now, he’s not sure party leadership really have anything to worry about, regardless of whether Oklahoma moves to an open primary system.  

“I don't know why the Republicans would be so opposed, because they're so strong right now that they're likely to get their top candidates, you know, as part of the primary,” Sharp said.

Sharp points out, there are many deep-red areas in Oklahoma where Libertarians, Democrats and Independents don’t even bother running candidates at all, meaning registered Republican primary voters are the only ones who get a say in who represents everyone.

“I don't think that's healthy,” Sharp said.

While it may feel like an uphill battle in this state for any candidate left of extremely-far-right to stand a chance in a Republican primary in Oklahoma, Sharp says that’s actually a relatively new phenomenon.

“People forget that we were a one party state for most of that 20th century,” Sharp said. “And that one party was Democrats.”

He says, while not as easy, there could be another path for candidates in the middle to someday win in primary elections, without changing a thing about the state’s election system.

“You start at the local level, start in school boards, start in city councils, get your folks elected, build a party base there and then move up,” he said. “That's, I think, one of the key ingredients to the Republican success.”

News 4 reached out to Holt, Bynum and Osborn for comment.

Holt’s office referred News 4 back to his comments on FlashPoint in September.

Bynum’s office told News 4 “no comment.”

Osborn did not respond.