TULSA — In recent days, longtime conservative political consultant Roger Stone traveled to Tulsa to support the campaign of Jackson Lahmeyer, someone many consider a long shot to unseat incumbent US Senator James Lankford (R-OK) in the upcoming Republican primary.
Stone tells KRMG in his estimation, Lahmeyer has an excellent chance to win, based on what Stone sees as some real vulnerabilities in Lankford’s voting record, as well as a general sense of dissatisfaction and discontent among the rank-and-file Republicans in the state.
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But having a name like Stone’s attached to the campaign will likely help move the needle on that problem.
Lahmeyer’s not well known by voters, he admits, at least not yet.
He doesn’t predict a Lahmeyer victory based on any kind of hunch, he explained.
“This guy is running a classic insurgent campaign,” Stone told KRMG. “He’s got over 6,000 contributors, all of them in Oklahoma. He’s raised over $600,000, yet he hasn’t yet done a massive blast solicitation - these are people who came to a rally... You used to have to drag people to a rally, to fill seats. I’ve never seen a situation in which people paid 25 bucks to get a seat. That’s a real change in our politics.”
He went on to say he’s seen poll numbers which indicate Sen. Lankford isn’t winning as handily as some observers believe.
“I have seen scientific poll data - dispassionate, unbiased poll data - that shows that when the voters in this state are aware of Lankford’s record on the elections, or on amnesty, or on the appointment of (US Attorney) Merrick Garland, or a number of other issues that they’re going to learn about in the course of the campaign, that he (Lankford) drops below 50 percent.”
As for Lankford, Stone is highly critical not only of his voting record, but also what Stone perceives as the incumbent’s attitude toward being challenged in the primary.
“In all honesty, I think he deeply resents being challenged, as if he has some birthright to this seat, or that he’s entitled to it,” Stone said. “Nobody owns anything - it is up to the people.”