If you would have told me back in June that a candidate for Oklahoma Governor would hop on Facebook in October and issue a statement that KWTV News 9 – Oklahoma's conservative news leader – had it out for them, my response would have been something like this…
"Honestly, Joy can't be very surprised. News 9 is owned by the conservative Griffin family. Their political analyst took payments from Epic Charter School, they partner and accept advertising money from Ryan Walters's shady non-profit, and as we learned back in 2018 when their fact checkers invented new facts in support of Kevin Stitt, they're not shy about letting their personal political beliefs guide and influence News 9 reporting and helicopter news coverage. I mean, they literally just held a Stitt Chum-A-Thon! What does she expect?"
As it turns out, my response would have been way off base!
Yesterday afternoon, Kevin Stitt's campaign team hopped on Facebook and complained to supporters that their former besties at News 9 are planning to issue "negative-toned stories" and "new poll" results out of spite…
That's hysterical, very Trumpian, and brings up a ton of questions…
First of all, I wonder what negative-toned stories News 9 has in the works?! Did they learn that his administration grifted Brent Swadley millions of dollars in taxpayer funding, that Stitt appointees like Ryan Walters abused and misused millions of dollars in COVID funding set aside for public education, or that Stitt recently signed some of the most restrictive abortion legislation in the country? That would be wild!
Then again, all of that's already been widely reported.
Perhaps the real reason Stitt's campaign team is upset with News 9 is that a new poll the station commissioned from Sooner Poll shows Joy Hofmeister holding an actual lead in the race for governor!
Yep! Not to bury the lede here, but we've learned via the Ogle Mole Network that News 9 will release a poll next week showing that Kevin Stitt is now trailing Joy Hofmeister!
That's wild! If Stitt – a wealthy right-wing Evangelical incumbent Governor from the reddest state in the nation – somehow finds a way to lose the Gubernatorial race, it will likely go down as one of the biggest political fails in Oklahoma history! Considering his reign as Governor has been a series of massive failures, that would be totally fitting.
Then again, I'll believe all that when I see Stitt refusing to concede the election and claiming it's all rigged! As I mentioned, one of the polls comes from Sooner Poll, which is about as reliable as the old KFOR NFL Sunday Telepoll. Plus, we still have a lot of time between now and November for the national GOP to panic and flood the state with money to prop up the campaign of our failing Governor.
Either way, it looks like the Oklahoma governor's race continues to get more interesting. Stay with The Lost Ogle. We'll keep you advised.
