Green Country's nastiest primary battle comes to an end tomorrow

After five terms in Congress, Oklahoma District One Representative John Sullivan is in the fight of his political life in tomorrow's primary.

Tea Party-backed candidate Jim Bridenstine has attacked Sullivan on his attendance record.

"John Sullivan has been in office for 11 years," says Bridenstine, "He chairs no committees, he chairs no sub-committees, he holds no leadership positions and it's probably because he has one of the worst attendance records in the House."

Meanwhile, Sullivan has attacked Bridenstine's voting record in primary and general elections.

And, he's gone after Bridenstine's tenure as director of the Tulsa Air and Space Museum claiming the museum lost over $700,000 while Bridenstine was in charge.

Tuesday's winner will face Democrat John Olson, the owner of a small business, and independent Craig Allen, an airline pilot, who will be on the 1st District ballot in November.

"I never had a race like this in all my life," Sullivan told The Associated Press from Washington, as he prepared to jump on a flight back to Oklahoma for a last-minute campaign push ahead of Tuesday's primary to decide who will be the Republican nominee representing Oklahoma's 1st congressional district. "The only mistake I made was I ignored it for too long."

In the past several weeks, Sullivan and Bridenstine have squabbled over who is the most conservative choice to represent the district that includes the city of Tulsa.

Bridenstine, a Navy pilot, has tried to paint Sullivan as a career politician who has become out of touch with working-class Oklahomans because he voted for things like bailouts, debt ceiling increases and "government takeovers."

Bridenstine has tried to run to the right of his opponent — a feat because of Sullivan's claim that he's the most conservative member of Oklahoma's congressional delegation — by knocking him on his 2009 stay at the Betty Ford Center in California to treat alcoholism and his missing hundreds of votes since he's been in office.

Bridenstine's campaign claims Sullivan has missed 679 of 7,650 votes in the past decade — which is 9 percent and much higher than the 2.4 percent median of missed votes among lawmakers. And last week, he said Sullivan's history of "substance abuse" made him unfit to hold the office.