A Victorious Special Election

A special election was held in Oklahoma last year (2014) to fill the seat of Senator Tom Coburn who decided to retire early due to health conditions.  With his early retirement, a special election had to be held to fill his empty Senate seat for the remaining 2 years of Coburn's 6 year term.  House representative, at the time, James Lankford ran for the open seat against democratic nominee, Connie Johnson.  Johnson served as an acting Oklahoma State Senator. According to The Washington Post's Election Lab, Oklahoma was predicted to vote for the republican candidate with some websites predicting a +32.5 lead.  The results of the election actually showed a victory margin of +38.9, confirming a solid GOP hold on Oklahoma.  

Senator Lankford's year-long campaigning raised $4,277,787 according to OpenSecrets.com, an informative political website advocating for a transparent and responsive government.  Lankford ended up spending $4,384,320 during his campaign.

The top contributors to Lankford's campaign: Devon Energy, Koch Industries, OGE Energy, Cox Enterprises, and Murray Enterprises.

The top industries contributing to Lankford's campaign: Oil & Gas, Retired, Health Professionals, Leadership PACs, and Commercial Banks.

Having just entered the Senate office this past January, it's difficult to place the impact of Lankford's actions and the election outcome of Oklahoma's Senate race for 2016.  Based off of Oklahoma's voting history (pictured above), it has been referenced as the "reddest of red states". Oklahoma was the only state in America in which all its counties voted against President Obama.  My prediction for the upcoming 2016 election would be to keep Lankford in the Senate seat.  He has a clean record as far as I can tell and is generally well-liked by his constituents.  I'm going to guess that his seat in the Senate is safe as long as he keeps up his productive and conservative representation.

Fun Fact: Senator Lankford and I shared the similarity of liking Arizona Green Tea.  It's the best of all their iced teas... just sayin'.