The Republican National Convention has already concluded and the Democratic National Convention concludes today. These two events are more than a showcase for each party’s presidential candidates, however. They are also a reminder of why policy and political parties matter to voters.

For Oklahomans, one major issue is how each party will treat the oil-and-gas industry, which remains the foundation of our state’s economy. Vice President Kamala Harris famously vowed to ban fracking when she first ran for president four years ago, but now has abruptly announced she’s changed her mind and no longer wants to ban fracking.

One would like to think this change of heart was due to Harris achieving a better understanding of the importance of domestic oil-and-gas production to our nation, but one suspects she landed on her current position because fracking is important to voters in swing-state Pennsylvania as much as it is to voters in strongly Republican Oklahoma.

Voters will have to determine which version of Harris to believe—the 2020 version or the 2024 candidate.

Oklahomans will also have the opportunity to observe which party better aligns with the priorities endorsed in our state. Oklahoma policymakers have taken a strong stand for common-sense laws that keep boys from using the girls’ bathrooms in public schools and prohibit males from competing in women’s athletics. Notably, as governor of Minnesota, Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walz supported a program that placed women’s menstrual products into public-school boys’ bathrooms. And he has also suggested those who don’t support those types of policies are “weird.”

Oklahomans have grappled with the same issue locally.

Earlier this year, the president of OU Women’s Health Advocacy admitted that her group received mandatory student-fee funds and used the money, directly or indirectly, to pay to place women’s menstrual products in OU bathrooms, including men’s bathrooms on campus. The advocacy official tacitly conceded money was wasted by putting menstrual products in men’s bathrooms when she noted that “due to a lack of use, those stations are no longer there.”

Oklahomans, like voters across the nation, will also pay attention to how the two parties address key economic concerns, such as the runaway inflation of the Biden administration. Donald Trump says he will return the country to the conditions that prevailed during his prior term in office, when inflation was low and wage growth was strong, by returning to the low-tax, light-regulation model he employed before. 

Harris says she will focus on lowering inflation on day one of a new presidential term—but doesn’t explain why she isn’t pushing to lower inflation right now as vice president, nor why she has allowed inflation to reach levels not seen in decades.

No doubt, personalities matter in presidential elections. But party ideology and associated policy matter even more.