Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt made headlines last month after penning an endorsement for Vice President Kamala Harris, rejecting his own party’s nominee, Republican Donald Trump.
Except “endorsement” isn’t the word Holt would use. His column, published in the Philadelphia Citizen, focused on his desire to see a president with “character, competence and commitment.”
“I will vote for virtue,” Holt wrote.
But missing from his column were the names of either candidate. Although the headline — picked by editors at the Philadelphia Citizen — was “A Republican Mayor’s Unexpected Presidential Vote.”
“I accept that reasonable interpretation of the piece,” Holt said during an interview with Oklahoma Gazette. “But in my world, when you endorse someone, you actually say their name. There was no endorsement.”
However, Holt said the assumption that he supported Harris wasn’t wrong.
“I think the most you could say is that I wrote a column that makes a point about character, and it seemed to most reasonable readers to be more applicable to one candidate over the other,” Holt added.
Some questioned the political wisdom of Holt writing the column.
“Is his political career over?” asked Joe Carter, a columnist for The Norman Transcript. “He has likely disqualified himself from the governor’s office or any other statewide elected position by taking this stance.”
The column wasn’t the first time Holt appeared to take jabs at Trump. In 2019, following anti-immigrant remarks by Trump, Holt tweeted a call for “empathy, grace and love.” In Oklahoma City, “we welcome all,” he stated.
In 2021, Holt criticized members of Congress, which included Oklahoma’s delegation, for giving credence to Trump’s false claims that he actually won the 2020 election against President Joe Biden.
“Here is the truth: President Donald Trump did not win the 2020 election. It wasn’t even particularly close,” Holt wrote then.
While those views might not win Holt a Republican primary for statewide office — of which he has not publicly expressed any interest — they don’t seem to be disqualifying in a purple city like Oklahoma City.
Holt first won election in 2018 with 78.5 percent of the vote. In 2022, Holt was reelected with nearly 60 percent in a four-person race.
Remaining Republican
In some ways, Holt being a registered Republican while supporting the Democratic presidential candidate is in line with politically mixed Oklahoma City.
Oklahoma County, which includes most of the city, was evenly split this presidential election. Trump won 49.7 percent of the vote, while Harris received 48 percent.
Holt is a registered Republican who worked in the George W. Bush administration before becoming a Republican state senator in Oklahoma.
The city’s mayoral race is nonpartisan, so his name no longer appears on the ballot with the label of a political party. Holt said fixing roads, building parks and funding cops are not partisan endeavors.
Still, he has drawn attention for anti-Trump statements that would largely be ignored if made by a Democratic mayor in another city.
“You almost always find that anyone referring to me as a Republican mayor is not me,” Holt said. “I sort of accept that’s the way of the world, especially from the perspective of Washington. Everyone has to be in a political party; they can’t see any other paradigms.
“But I don’t know that I look at myself as a Republican mayor because that’s not the system we have (in Oklahoma City),” Holt added. “And I have embraced our nonpartisan system and have pursued policy outcomes and coalitions that are clearly across partisan lines.”
Holt acknowledges the Republican Party has changed since his days in the Bush White House. But when asked why he’s remained a registered Republican, Holt said it isn’t something he’s thought much about.
“When people ask, ‘How can you still be a Republican?’ I’m like, I don’t know. It’s not something I worry about,” Holt said. “My vote as a person isn’t bound by whatever party I’m registered as, other than, I guess, the fact that you have to vote in a certain primary.
“I mean, when you think about how there’s a political party that has both Liz Cheney and Marjorie Taylor Greene in it, my point is, what does it even really mean?”
Working with Trump
The day after Trump’s victory, Holt publicly congratulated the returning president, noting the city’s own political mix.
“OKC voters were split down the middle in this presidential election and the last, but Republicans, Democrats and Independents in our city still work together every day to get things done,” Holt posted on social media. “That will continue.”
The congratulations bothered some on the political left, including JoBeth Hamon, a progressive member of the city council who accused Holt of “capitulating to perceived power and influence” in her own social media post. (In Ward 6, Hamon’s central Oklahoma City ward, just 34 percent of voters supported Trump this year.)
But Holt said he’s ready to take a posture of cooperation with the incoming administration, even if history has shown that could be a challenge.
“I would hope that we can find some partnership with the new administration and Congress on seemingly bipartisan issues, like infrastructure and housing,” Holt said.
Holt said working with the Trump administration during his first term “was okay,” but there wasn’t a lot of movement. In comparison, Biden’s administration seemed to make a lot of progress on issues important to cities, including the infrastructure investment package.
“There’s been so many legislative events over the last four years (compared to Trump’s first term). That’s just objectively true,” Holt said. “Obviously, that didn’t make an impression on the electorate, and it is what it is, but it was a very productive legislative tenure (for Biden).”
Holt won’t just be advocating for the interests of Oklahoma City to the new administration. In June, he will become president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, a nationwide organization of leaders from over 1,400 cities.
“No one is more pragmatic than mayors. We just want to get things done for our cities,” Holt said. “Of course, most big-city mayors are Democrats, but even still, I think a lot of them would be open to working (with the Trump administration) because that’s what we do.”
This article appears in Queen of Oklahoma.