Oklahoma Democrats: Resurgence in a red state?

TULSA — Oklahoma Democrats are pinning their hopes for the future on a woman who admittedly hasn’t much of a past, since she’s 24 years old.

But Anna Langthorn, the new Oklahoma Democratic Party Chair, has very definite goals, and a vision for the future of her party.

And she’s not shy about saying it’s going to be a long, hard road to return the ODP to a state of parity in what is known as the reddest of red states.

We've got a lot of work to do if we want to get back to any kind of balance, and it's gonna happen over the course of the next ten years, not overnight -- Anna Langthorn, Oklahoma Democratic Party Chair

Her election at the state convention in May made her the youngest ODP chair in history.

She says it’s also a sign that Oklahoma’s Democrats want change, and she’s encouraged by what she sees as a resurgence in activity in a party that only fielded a handful of candidates in the last election cycle.

“We’ve seen in the party, this year, a huge revitalization,” she said. “We have organizational meetings in the spring, precinct meetings and county meetings and congressional district meetings and our convention, and the turnout for all of those meetings was triple in most cases what it normally is.”

County organizations in the western part of the state that have been dormant, in some cases, for 20 years have restarted, she said.

The GOP has opened the door, to some extent, with a series of resignations that will require six special elections to fill open seats before the end of 2017.

“Those special elections, with the exception of one, are all the result of Republican leaders either abdicating their duties because they got a better job offer, or Republicans having scandals, right? Either ethics or sex scandals,” Langthorn pointed out.

So job one for Democrats is to try to pick up some of those seats in the state legislature.

But 2018 is right around the corner, and from the governor’s office on down there are a number of key offices on the line.

“In 2018, we have a lot of opportunity to hold Republicans accountable,” Langthorn said. “But we have to do the work.”