Law & Principles

Democratic Socialist wave reaches Oklahoma

July 28, 2026

Ray Carter

For most of Oklahoma’s first century, the Democratic Party held sway in state politics. Yet for many decades, particularly in the second half of the 20th century, members of the party would often describe themselves as an “Oklahoma Democrat” to separate themselves from more liberal “San Francisco Democrats” or similar counterparts.

That practice is now largely a thing of the past as a growing number of Oklahoma Democrats today identify with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), including the first-place finisher in the June primary for the Democratic Party’s U.S. Senate nomination.

U.S. Senate candidate N’kiyla Jasmine Thomas received 45 percent of the Democratic primary vote in June, far outpacing the other four candidates in the primary election, which now proceeds to a runoff.

Thomas publicly identifies as a Democratic Socialist, telling online outlet NonDoc, “Most countries that have socialism, they are thriving.”

Thomas has staked out positions on a range of issues, including the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and transgenderism.

On her Instagram account, Thomas said she supports “ending ICE as it currently operates” and vowed to end qualified immunity for federal immigration enforcement officers.

In one Instagram post, Thomas bragged that she was the “only Democratic Progressive that’s Corporate and AIPAC free,” referring to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

In a Jan. 13 post on her Facebook page, Thomas criticized Gov. Kevin Stitt for signing a law that prohibits males from competing in girls’ athletics as “transgender women.” Thomas wrote, “Yes, there are trans students in sports. No, it’s not some massive crisis.” She said Oklahoma was “making whole laws about a tiny group of kids just trying to exist and play sports.”

In a June 27 Facebook post, Thomas again vowed to “abolish ICE.”

Thomas is among a wave of Democratic Socialist candidates competing in elections across the country this year.

Recently, Independent Voter News reported that national DSA membership has surged from around 6,000 in 2016 to more than 100,000 today. The DSA now has chapters in Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

In April, Josh Appel, a policy analyst at the Manhattan Institute, stated that DSA candidates hold approximately 250 local political positions across all 50 states.

In June, the Washington Examiner reported that candidates endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America had won 35 primary elections so far this year, including in two high-profile Democratic congressional primaries in New York.

Also in June, the Democratic Socialists of America chapter in Albuquerque, New Mexico, proclaimed that Democratic Socialists “are winning across the country,” including congressional primaries, state legislative primaries and local elections.

“We aren’t just a legislative voting bloc anymore,” the Albuquerque DSA post stated. “Over the last year, democratic socialists have fundamentally altered urban politics across the nation, built directly on the historic momentum of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, whose landmark victory completely rewrote the playbook for municipal socialist power.”

The group’s post noted that Washington, D.C. Council member Janeese Lewis George won her recent mayoral primary, “paving a clear path to the D.C. Mayor’s office.”

The group also noted that a Democratic Socialist is currently mayor of Seattle and a DSA candidate has made the runoff in the Los Angeles mayoral race.

At the same time in Wisconsin, another self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist, Francesca Hong, is among those seeking the Democratic Party’s gubernatorial nomination and led the field in one recent poll. Hong’s policy platform includes a vow to eliminate school-choice programs, enact a $20-an-hour minimum wage, create “publicly owned grocery stores,” provide in-state tuition to certain illegal immigrants, and “abolish ICE and prosecute lawbreaking agents.”

While candidates who publicly identify as socialists have been a rarity in Oklahoma in recent decades, that was not the case during the earliest years of statehood.

An article on the website of the Oklahoma Historical Society notes, “In the first two decades of the twentieth century the Socialist Party of Oklahoma consistently ranked as one of the top three state socialist organizations in America. At the party’s height in the elections of 1914, the Socialist Party candidate for governor, Fred W. Holt, received more than 20 percent of the vote statewide. In Marshall and Roger Mills counties, where the Socialist Party was strongest, Holt captured 41 and 35 percent of the vote, respectively. More than 175 socialists were elected to local and county offices that year, including six to the state legislature.”