On Tuesday night, former Sen. Josh Brecheen (R-Coalgate) defeated Rep. Avery Frix (R-Muskogee) to secure the Republican nomination for Oklahoma’s 2nd Congressional District with 52.21 percent of the vote.
Frix and Brecheen advanced to the runoff after finishing at the top of a 14-person primary in June, when they received 14.74 and 13.75 percent of the vote, respectively.
Brecheen served in the State Senate from 2010 to 2018, when he decided not to run for reelection owing to a self-imposed term limit. Before his time in the Senate, he was a field representative for U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn from 2004 to 2010. Brecheen is a fourth-generation rancher, and he was the state president of the National FFA Organization in 1998. He owns Rawhide Dirtworks, an excavation service, and a motivational speaking business called Brecheen Keynotes and Seminars.
While in the State Senate, Brecheen authored a bill intended to cap the state’s debt. Among the goals mentioned on his campaign website are enacting congressional term limits, cutting government spending, and “reducing Washington’s influence in our daily lives.”
In a debate hosted by News on 6 on Aug. 16, Brecheen, who is a citizen of the Choctaw Nation, said one of his other concerns is “lawlessness in eastern Oklahoma” in the wake of the McGirt v. Oklahoma decision.
In November, Brecheen will face Democrat Naomi Andrews, a marketing director, and independent “Bulldog” Ben Robinson, who served in the State Senate as a Democrat from 1989 to 2004.
The current representative from Oklahoma’s 2nd Congressional District is U.S. Rep. Markwayne Mullin, who chose not to run for reelection in order to run for the U.S. Senate. On Tuesday, he won the Republican nomination against former Oklahoma House Speaker T.W. Shannon for the seat Jim Inhofe is vacating.
All results posted by the Oklahoma State Election Board online are unofficial until they are certified by the board.
