Oklahoma candidate Alex Gray is hoping a list of officials from former President Donald Trump‘s administration will be enough to swing him to the top of a packed Senate primary election.
Gray, a Sooner State native and former chief of staff for the National Security Council under Trump, is now taking aim at President Joe Biden’s regulatory actions. In a statement to the Washington Examiner, Gray accused Biden’s administration of “waging war on our energy production.” Gray added that GOP lawmakers must “use every tool afforded to us in the Senate to make it impossible for these regulations to go forward.”
“Whether it’s oil and gas leases on federal land, whether it’s pipelines … we have to start dismantling the administrative state,” Gray said. “This isn’t Congress — this is regulatory agencies unaccountable to anyone, who are raising the price of gas, who are contributing to inflation, and who are putting Oklahomans out of work and Americans out of work.”
CROWDED OKLAHOMA GOP SENATE FIELD GROWS AS EX-TRUMP ADVISER ALEX GRAY ENTERS
The former NSC chief of staff is facing 12 other GOP candidates running to succeed outgoing Sen. James Inhofe in the June 28 primary. Inhofe, first elected to the Senate in 1994 after eight years in the House, is leaving with four years left in his term and has endorsed his former chief of staff, Luke Holland.
“Oklahomans have a lot of respect for Jim, and I hear it on the trail every day,” Gray said in response to an inquiry over Holland’s endorsement by the sitting senator.
Gray argued constituents will “come up with their own conclusions. … You look at our political history, and the candidates to start out either anointed by the establishment or are seen as the front-runner usually don’t win,” Gray said, citing that Gov. Kevin Stitt was an “underdog” in his 2018 victory over former Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett.
The candidate also touched on a need for U.S. lawmakers who have “national security experience, particularly after what happened in Ukraine” following Russian forces invading the country in February.
“We need people who don’t need training wheels, who on day one can step in and be voices for a serious foreign policy and serious national security policy,” Gray added.
Gray’s endorsements include Ric Grenell, former ambassador to Germany and acting director of the National Intelligence Agency. Gray has also gained the endorsement of Kash Patel, former Department of Defense chief of staff, and Robert O’Brien, former national security adviser under Trump from 2019 to 2021.
In addition to Gray’s campaign promises, he said the “major issue facing” the state is the consequential 2020 Supreme Court case McGirt v. Oklahoma, which voids the state’s criminal jurisdiction in a significant portion of the eastern part of the state when a case involves a member of a federally recognized Native American tribe.
Gray argued the “real underlying challenges caused by McGirt require congressional action,” adding that “there is very real potential for the McGirt case to seep into civil matters … to start affecting oil and gas leases, to start affecting double taxation on businesses.”
“McGirt has become such an overwhelming challenge for daily life for so many Oklahomans … particularly our most vulnerable tribal members in the eastern half of the state, who are statistically more likely to be the victims of crime. It has become a truly urgent matter to step in congressionally and to help them,” Gray said.
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Candidates running to replace Inhofe include Rep. Markwayne Mullin from Oklahoma’s 2nd Congressional District, State Sen. Nathan Dahm, former Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt, and T.W. Shannon, a former state representative who was Oklahoma’s first black House speaker.
Others running for the seat are Jessica Jean Garrison, Adam Holley, Randy J. Grellner, Michael Coibion, Paul Royse, John F. Tompkins, and Laura Moreno.
