At just 44 years old, T.W. Shannon is mounting his second bid for the Senate.
For the second time, the Oklahoma Republican is running in a special election to fill the remainder of a six-year term being vacated prematurely by a GOP incumbent. This time, it’s Sen. James Inhofe, 87, who was first elected in 1994 and is resigning from Congress at year’s end.
So, what dragged Shannon, now chief executive officer of a community bank in Oklahoma City, out of political retirement since his first (and unsuccessful) campaign for Senate eight years ago?
“I’m concerned about the direction of the country,” he told the Washington Examiner on Thursday, a few minutes after announcing his candidacy. “The woke agenda has infected nearly every aspect of our lives — and frankly, when I look around, Americans and Oklahomans are hurting.”
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Shannon, who is black, was considered a Republican wunderkind when he sought the Senate in 2014 — the last time the GOP captured the majority from the Democrats in a midterm election. Then 36, Shannon was the speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives and a dynamic, personable up-and-comer. He also stood to fulfill the national Republican Party’s desire to diversify the ranks of its elected leaders. Republican voters in Oklahoma had other ideas, instead choosing now-Sen. James Lankford, then a four-year House member.
Shannon is a bit more seasoned this time around, both personally and professionally. He has been married for 20 years to his college sweetheart and has a 16-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son. He retired from the Oklahoma Legislature in 2014 and has mostly worked in the private sector since then, transforming what he described as a “sleepy” community bank with $113 million in assets when he became CEO in 2017 into an institution with nearly $500 million in assets.
That’s partly how Shannon plans to differentiate himself in what is likely to be a competitive and contentious primary campaign, given that open Senate seats in deep-red Oklahoma do not come along very often: by emphasizing his personal story. All of the candidates are likely to be of the staunchly conservative variety and be opposed to abortion rights, supportive of gun rights, suspicious of big government, in favor of domestic energy exploration and production, and fans, at least publicly, of former President Donald Trump.
Indeed, Shannon emphasized that every Republican running so far is a friend with whom he communicates regularly via telephone and text message.
“My story is unique, and that’s all anybody has,” he said. “I’m probably the greatest embodiment of the opportunity available in this country.”
“America is not the home of systemic racism. America is the home of systemic opportunity,” he added, returning the theme of “woke-ism” that he said is animating his desire to give politics another try. “That’s going to be my story in the race, and hopefully that inspires people.”
Lankford is up for reelection this year, meaning Oklahoma Republicans can look forward to an unusual two Senate contests on the ballot this November.
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In addition to Shannon, Republicans running for the open Inhofe seat include state Sen. Nathan Dahm; former Trump White House national security aide Alex Gray, who has been endorsed by former acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell; former national security adviser Robert C. O’Brien; Sen. Mike Lee of Utah; former Inhofe chief of staff Luke Holland; and Rep. Markwayne Mullin.
