Trey Martin Scores Bernie Sanders Endorsement in CD-5 race…

The Democratic race to lose to Stephanie Bice in the CD-5 General Election has gotten a tad more interesting!

Last week, Trey Martin – the new-to-the-scene, blue-collar tattooed union guy who’s opposing Jena Nelson in the Democratic CD-5 primary – announced he received an endorsement from Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

You know, the famed Democratic socialist who carried Oklahoma in the 2016 Democratic presidential primary.

Check this out:

I don’t know how much weight endorsements carry in this day and age, but I’ll admit this one caught my attention.

As an Independent who voted for Bernie in 2016, it would definitely make me give Trey Martin a longer look... if I were allowed to vote in Oklahoma primaries this year. Thanks for that, John Waldron!

Then again, should an endorsement like this even matter? Do you really think Bernie Sanders knows anything about Trey Martin other than what some aide, handler, or national progressive PAC put in front of him? This feels like less of an endorsement of Trey Martin the candidate and more like an endorsement of Trey Martin the concept.

Either way, an endorsement is an endorsement. Trey responded to it by running to the Paseo Arts Festival and begging for money:

Listen, I know Trey is new to the scene and a little raw, but someone needs to get him into a public speaking class immediately. At the very least, hire the same coach who appears to be working with his primary opponent – Jena Nelson.

While Trey was on X bragging about his Bernie Sanders endorsement, she was getting mad about the dismantling of the Department of Education and left a video about it:

Yikes. Did anyone else jump when Jena raised her voice there? I felt like I was about to get detention! All she needs are some truck commercial sound effects and a few shots of her walking past a welding rig at sunset, and her ads are going to feel a lot like Trey’s.

For what it’s worth, and in the spirit of equal time, Trey isn’t the only one bragging about endorsements on social media. Jena has received one from a notable Oklahoma Democratic politician:

David Walters is still about as close as the Oklahoma Democratic Party gets to a kingmaker, so I’d argue his endorsement probably carries more weight in the local insider scheme of things than Bernie Sanders’s.

But then again, what do I know?

I’m just an Independent sitting on the sidelines – thanks again, John Waldron – watching two Democrats fight for the right to lose to Stephanie Bice in a gerrymandered district that still leans very red.

But until we get to that... 

Will Bernie’s national progressive stamp fire up the base and score Trey a primary victory, or will Walters’s local blessing matter more to the donor class and party insiders and carry Jena to a win?

I guess we’ll find out in a few weeks!

Stay with The Lost Ogle. We’ll keep you advised.