New leadership in the Oklahoma City metro will be determined on April 1. While most may think of election season as being in November, the results of Oklahoma’s primary elections on Feb. 11 are now followed by a handful of runoffs for various local state and county positions where candidates did not receive over 50% of the popular vote amidst their opponents in the general election. Among these contested seats in the OKC area are Oklahoma City Council Ward 7, Oklahoma County Board of Commissioners District 1 and the Edmond mayorship.
Ward 7
First off is the general runoff election for OKC Council Ward 7 between Camal Pennington and John Pettis Jr. Encompassing much of northeast OKC, the district is one of the larger in the metro. The position was most recently held by current Oklahoma Senator Nikki Nice (District 48). With the election results coming in, the four candidates secured the following percentage of the vote: Camal Pennington (45.49%), Pettis (30.24%), Masood A. Haw (14.84%) and Andrea Holman (9.43%).
Pennington is an attorney and chair of the OKC Planning Commission along with being executive director of It’s My Community Initiative, a nonprofit organization that supports “financially vulnerable individuals and families.” On his campaign website, he is described as “passionate about public safety, empowering families, job creation and economic development and affordable home ownership.”
Pettis is a pastor and former councilman for Ward 7 (2013 to 2018). However, he resigned in scandal from his Ward 7 seat due to charges of embezzlement that were later dropped in 2019 and failing to file state tax returns. Pleading guilty to a misdemeanor tax evasion charge, he paid $5,000 and agreed to not seek political office again. He has since countered the misdemeanor by saying that he was wrongfully charged due to his seeking election for the position of County Commissioner in 2018. Pettis is running on the platform of his previous experience in the office as councilman, and his campaign website describes him as “one of the nation’s leaders in community and economic development, urban and rural planning, diversity, equality and inclusion.” He also emphasizes “economic development and jobs, high quality and consistent public transportation, better streets and sidewalks, and safe parks for our children to play in.” While both candidates have proven that they have their community’s interests at heart, Pennington has previously led the vote with hopes of greater promise than the experience that Pettis brings to the table.
Board of Commissioners
Next is a special county election for Oklahoma County Board of Commissioners District 1, which caters to central Oklahoma County. This general election will be between Representative Jason Lowe (Democrat) and Jed Green (Independent) after Rep. Lowe’s victory in a three-way primary that resulted in Representative Jason Lowe (40.63%) beating former Senator Anastasia Pittman (31.73%) and Councilwoman Sara Bana of Midwest City (27.64%). As the Democratic candidate, Lowe’s experience in criminal defense serves as his primary motivation for the election in which he hopes to reform the Oklahoma County Jail. Citing the horrific conditions that he witnesses during his frequent visits to the jail, he stated during a January 2025 forum, “It is a mess. It is a place where people are actually going to die.” With his background as the founding attorney of The Lowe Law Firm, Lowe has also served in the Oklahoma House of Representatives since 2016, Representing District 97. His campaign message says, “In the Capitol, he advocates for change that improves the lives of every Oklahoman, including funding public education, access to health care, and rehabilitative criminal justice programs.”
Independent Jed Green is a political consultant and lobbyist who has “worked with both state leaders and grassroots organizers on both sides of the aisle.” While Green does not have a background in criminal justice and has just “dialed in on the business of the county,” as he told commissioners at a recent meeting, he has continuously voiced dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs. His focus has been on how a new Oklahoma County Jail would be practically financed through manners such as the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and the State Legislature to help negate the impact of financial burden through taxpayers, and he also wants to improve the conditions of the current jail. Green told The Oklahoman, it “has been a disaster from day one. … We were sent up for failure from the beginning,” and it will require a focus on “policy and procedures that affect our day-to-day jail population,” which he sees through “prioritiz[ing] funding to infrastructure and community partnership programs.” Thus, the main issue for the County Commissioner will be both the present and the future of the Oklahoma County Jail, which indicates that both candidates both deeply care about the matters at hand even if they come from vastly different backgrounds with their own interpretations and approaches of reform and efficiency.
Edmond mayor
The Edmond mayoral election is between Tom Robins and Mark Nash, who are running neck and neck. The results of the primary election were Mark Nash at 34.89%, Tom Robins at 34.25%, David Hornbeek at 27.33% and Leonard Scott at 3.52%. Nash’s slight lead was thanks to a mere 45 votes. While both Robins and Nash are aiming to sway Hornbeek’s former voters, both candidates also appear more similar than not in their visions for improving the City of Edmond. Both are seeking to expand Edmond’s transportation infrastructure, calling for fiscal transparency from the city government and improving quality of life through public works such as parks.
However, Tom Robins is coming in as a former Edmond City Council member (Ward 1) who resigned from his seat as councilman to run for mayor in order to “tackle our city’s most pressing challenges,” which include improving traffic, education, public safety and recreation. Ultimately, he describes his platform through the slogan, “I’m running to make Edmond the best place to call home.”
Mark Nash is a financial professional who is placing greater emphasis on budgeting and expenses, which he views as Edmond’s most pressing matter. On his campaign website, he states he wants “responsible spending, responsible street maintenance and improvement, responsible transparency and accountability for city programs and services, and responsible ‘quality of life’ through strategic community development.” Coming from vastly different backgrounds, both candidates offer a promise to face common problems that affect the common people.
As the final runoff elections take place, hopefully April showers will produce flowers in local leadership. As the newest leaders of local government, each of these candidates will be held accountable by their constituents for their campaign promises of helping build up their own communities. While Oklahoma politics are often scandalous and rife with national headlines of embarrassment, local governance is a different story where the immediate pressing matters take precedence and simply the act of genuine effort and boots on the ground can make all the difference for the quality of life in one’s community .
This article appears in Alcoholmanac 2025.