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{"id":26915,"date":"2026-08-26T03:17:49","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T03:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trump-backed-candidate-wins-primary-for-oklahoma-governor\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T03:17:49","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T03:17:49","slug":"trump-backed-candidate-wins-primary-for-oklahoma-governor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trump-backed-candidate-wins-primary-for-oklahoma-governor\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump-backed candidate wins primary for Oklahoma governor"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Former state Sen. Mike Mazzei narrowly won Oklahoma\u2019s GOP gubernatorial primary Tuesday, boosted by President Donald Trump\u2019s endorsement, a significant personal loan and a host of outside money.<\/p>\n<p>His defeat of Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond on Tuesday is a victory for Republican leaders in the state and Trump, who had endured a recent string of uncharacteristic primary losses, particularly in gubernatorial primaries. The president\u2019s preferred picks for governor in Wyoming, Iowa, Georgia, Minnesota and South Carolina all lost their races, and a trio of Trump-backed House candidates fell in Michigan and Florida earlier this month.<\/p>\n<p>Trump endorsed Mazzei in May, ahead of the state\u2019s open primary, but the race remained competitive. Drummond beat Mazzei by 0.3 percentage points in the first round on June 16, forcing Tuesday\u2019s runoff. And the race was defined by <a href=\"https:\/\/oklahomavoice.com\/2026\/08\/18\/oklahoma-republicans-raise-millions-ahead-of-key-runoff-elections\/\" target=\"_blank\">massive levels of self-funding<\/a> in a historically expensive primary for the state.<\/p>\n<p>Mazzei loaned his campaign $11.6 million, while Drummond loaned himself $3 million, according to campaign finance records. But Mazzei was also aided by outside money: The conservative group Club For Growth spent $8 million on TV ads boosting Mazzei and attacking Drummond, per the tracking firm AdImpact.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of the runoff, the state senator earned endorsements from Gov. Kevin Stitt and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who represented Oklahoma in Congress for 13 years.<\/p>\n<p>Mazzei served in the state senate for 12 years before being term-limited in 2016. He joined Stitt\u2019s administration for a year in 2019 as budget secretary. He\u2019s the overwhelming favorite in a general election matchup against Democratic state Rep. Cyndi Munson in a state Trump won by 34 points in 2024.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former state Sen. Mike Mazzei narrowly won Oklahoma\u2019s GOP gubernatorial primary Tuesday, boosted by President Donald Trump\u2019s endorsement, a significant personal loan and a host of outside money. His defeat of Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond on Tuesday is a victory for Republican leaders in the state and Trump, who had endured a recent string [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26915","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26915\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}