Inhofe retirement prompts wave of Republican candidates for his seat
TULSA, Okla. (KTUL) — January 3rd of 2023, Jim Inhofe will be leaving Congress for the last time since he first walked through the doors in 1987.
"I am announcing I will be leaving the United States Senate," Inhofe said over the phone in an announcement last week.
His announcement makes major waves while the junior senator for Oklahoma, James Lankford, is fighting to defend his seat. Already, Representative Markwayne Mullin is announcing his run.
"I'm just going to tell you the way it is. I'm in. I'm not one to back away from a fight. In fact, I believe if you're going to get into a fight, you win it. So we're in it to win it," said Mullin.
State Senator Nathan Dahm is also shifting his campaign for a run from Lankford's seat to a run for Inhofe's.
"We're still going to continue this race for United States Senate, but we will be running in the open seat that is now being vacated by Senator Jim Inhofe's retirement. It's still going to be the same election date of June 28th. We've been in this campaign for five months and we've heard from a lot of people who want a proven republican leader," said Dahm.
Political analyst and attorney Robert Patillo says Oklahoma having two senate seats for grabs is part of a nationwide trend.
"In recent years, we've seen it happen more and more often as more and more of the older senators are starting to retire or are leaving for health or family-related reasons. Also, that coincides with their junior senator being up for re-election at the same time," Patillo said.
Patillo says this shift has shown that we should all be prepared for these races to not go as you may have initially thought. That includes Inhofe's endorsement of his longtime chief of staff, Luke Holland.
"I have yet to see a senator or any public official who can pick their successor. This isn't like a quarterback or something where you say he's been the backup quarterback for three seasons so now he's going to play this year. It's really going to come down to who is able to fundraise properly," he said.
And not just that, but who can connect to the voters and have that x-factor that so often can tip an election.
