Election 2022: Kevin Stitt, Joy Hofmeister race for Oklahoma governor

TULSA, Okla. — The heated 2022 gubernatorial race in Oklahoma ends Tuesday as voters resolve who will govern them for the subsequent 4 years.

Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt is defending his place towards Democrat Pleasure Hofmeister, a former Republican who flipped events to problem Stitt this election cycle. Libertarian Natalie Bruno and Impartial Ervin Yen may also seem on Oklahoma ballots.

Who’s Pleasure Hofmeister?

Pleasure Hofmeister, serving her final time period as State Superintendent of Public Instruction, left the Republican celebration to launch her gubernatorial marketing campaign as a Democrat in October 2021.

“I’m switching events in hopes of constructing the Oklahoma I’ve all the time identified our state may be,” Hofmeister stated in her announcement. Voters elected her as a Republican as State Superintendent in 2014.

Earlier than her election, she labored as a public faculty instructor and proprietor of an afterschool program enterprise.

Hofmeister beat Connie Johnson by greater than 30,000 votes within the Democratic main in June to earn her spot on the November poll.

Who’s Kevin Stitt?

Sue Ogrocki/AP

Kevin Stitt served the final 4 years as Governor of Oklahoma.

Throughout his time as governor, Stitt has pushed by and permitted polarizing insurance policies together with limiting abortion entry within the state, opening the state’s colleges and companies amid the COVID-19 pandemic and combating again towards Oklahoma’s Native American tribes primarily with reference to tribal sovereignty.

Voters elected Stitt in 2018 with little political expertise, launching his marketing campaign as a multimillionaire mortgage firm proprietor trying to make Oklahoma a “prime 10 state.”

He beat a handful of challengers within the Republican main in June, clearing the next-closest candidate by nearly 200,000 votes.

Different candidates:

Sue Ogrocki/AP

Ervin Yen, one other candidate who left the Republican celebration to problem Kevin Stitt, is working as an Impartial within the gubernatorial race. Yen is working a reasonable, conservative-aimed marketing campaign after leaving his celebration following disagreements with Stitt over his COVID insurance policies and disagreements with the celebration as a complete over the questioning of the 2020 election.

Yen is an Oklahoma Metropolis doctor who served because the Oklahoma Legislature’s first Asian American from 2014 to 2018.

Natalie Bruno is working as a Libertarian within the 2022 gubernatorial race. Bruno is a Fort Sill native.

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