As Oklahoma ramps up for a special election over the highly sought-after seat of retiring Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe, another primary election looms for incumbent GOP Sen. James Lankford.
Nipping at Lankford’s political heels is a Republican political novice who says a “debate is necessary” in the Republican primary to air concerns properly.
Senate candidate Jackson Lahmeyer, a pastor at Sheridan Church in Tulsa and owner of a lawn care company, has made his support of former President Donald Trump a cornerstone in his bid against Lankford. The first-time candidate has rebuked Lankford for his decision to certify the 2020 election in favor of President Joe Biden. Lahmeyer also recently took aim at the senator’s unwillingness to engage in a public debate after Lankford said last month he wouldn’t give him “free air time.”
“James owes it to the people of Oklahoma, but also to the people of the United States of America, to get an answer for his actions on Jan. 6,” Lahmeyer told the Washington Examiner Wednesday, referring to Lankford’s decision to opt out of contesting the 2020 election after rioters breached the Capitol following a pro-Trump rally in Washington, D.C.
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Despite the Justice Department finding that no widespread election fraud affected the outcome in favor of Biden, Lahmeyer has echoed Trump’s repeated allegations that voter fraud and irregularities took place in states that he lost in the 2020 election — though Trump won throughout Oklahoma’s 77 counties.
The Senate hopeful also accused Lankford of “mocking President Trump’s border wall, proposing blanket amnesty for illegals, apologizing to the black community for even questioning the fraud on Jan. 6 — there’s a lot there. And so a debate is necessary.”
“For some reason, though, he’s adamant he’s not going to have a debate,” Lahmeyer said, noting they were invited to one by the Oklahoma Oil and Gas Workers Association. “He should be able to crush me in a debate, send me home.”
Following the Jan. 6 riot, Lankford penned a letter to the black community of North Tulsa on Jan. 14, nearing the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa race massacre, apologizing for not realizing the “national conversation” about voter fraud was “seen as casting doubt on the validity of votes coming out of predominantly Black communities like Atlanta, Philadelphia, and Detroit.”
In the letter, Lankford said he “cannot legally ignore any state’s electors or change any state’s votes,” but he defended his willingness to “work to get answers to outstanding questions” about the electoral system.
And in 2018, Lankford cosponsored the Secure and Succeed Act with several other GOP senators in an effort to allow approximately 1.8 million Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA-eligible immigrants to earn citizenship in exchange for appropriating $25 billion for border security, such as virtual fencing and physical walls.
“Every campaign runs their race their way. I have stayed focused on issues and solutions, not drama,” Lankford told the Washington Examiner in a statement Thursday, adding that he “will continue to travel Oklahoma over the next 12 weeks.”
A representative for Lankford also referred to a recent interview with the Oklahoman in which the senator compared Lahmeyer to Mark Sanford, a Republican who was the former governor of South Carolina and a congressman, who ran against Trump and used a cardboard cutout of the former president for mock debates during some events in 2019. Lankford said the candidate was so “low in polling” at the time that the debates were mocked as a “sideshow.”
A late March poll by Amber Integrated found that 63% of likely GOP voters said they would vote for or lean toward voting for Lankford in his renomination bid. Only 10% said they supported or leaned toward supporting Lahmeyer.
Landford first won his Senate seat in a 2014 special election, after four years in the House. He is not the only Sooner State lawmaker in recent years to avoid public debates. During the 2020 election, Inhofe denied his Democratic challenger Abby Broyles a public debate, with his campaign managers saying voters knew his positions from his years of previous interviews.
In fundraising, Lankford had $3 million in his campaign account at the end of 2021, nearly five times Lahmeyer’s year-end total of $600,000, which was down to $71,508 at the end of December, according to Federal Election Commission records.
“Now, we have raised over $750,000,” Lahmeyer said of his total campaign donations from around 8,000 donors since the candidate announced his bid to run against Lankford in February 2021.
Lahmeyer, who received an unusual endorsement from Oklahoma Republican Party Chairman John Bennett, is also backed by longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone and former national security aide Michael Flynn, who both received pardons from Trump after felony convictions.
“When Roger Stone is at the helm and he’s looking at the numbers and says, ‘We’re going to win this thing,’ I feel pretty good about it,” Lahmeyer said.
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Lankford has been endorsed by Trump’s former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Both the incumbent and Lahmeyer are seeking endorsement from the former president, who is still holding out on granting his backing to either candidate.
The deadline for candidates to file for Oklahoma state offices is April 13-15, while primary elections will be held on June 28 and runoff primaries on Aug. 23.
