(Update:Â On Tuesday, June 16, Jim Priest and N’kiyla Jasmine Thomas advanced to an Aug. 25 runoff for the Democratic nomination to Oklahoma’s open U.S. Senate seat.)
Five Democrats are running to flip an Oklahoma U.S. Senate seat held by Republicans for more than 30 years.
R.O. Joe Cassity, Jr., Troy W. Green, Jim Priest, N’kiyla Jasmine Thomas and Ervin Stone Yen are competing for the Oklahoma Democratic Party’s nomination.
The race features no incumbent because current U.S. Sen. Alan Armstrong (R-OK), who was appointed by Gov. Kevin Stitt following the resignation of former Sen. Markwayne Mullin, pledged not to seek a full term. Mullin resigned in March 2026 after President Donald Trump nominated him to serve as secretary of homeland security.
If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the vote in the June 16 Democratic primary, the top two finishers will advance to an Aug. 25 runoff. The Democratic nominee will face an uphill battle against their Republican opponent, as well as two independents and one Libertarian, in the Nov. 3 general election.
The following cheat sheet provides an overview of Oklahoma’s Democratic U.S. Senate candidates and is derived from publicly available information, such as campaign websites, social media pages, news articles and podcast appearances. Candidates are listed alphabetically.
R.O. Joe Cassity, Jr.
Age:Â 82
Profession/background: R.O. Joe Cassity, Jr. is a retired history professor and attorney from Ponca City. According to his Facebook page, Cassity graduated from Oklahoma State University and later earned a trio of graduate degrees from the University of Oklahoma. He spent most of his teaching career as an associate professor at Ming Chuan University and Fu Jen Catholic University in Taiwan. He also taught for the University of Maryland at U.S. military bases in Asia and at Fort Sill in Lawton for OU.
Cassity served 23 years in the U.S. Army Reserve, completed the 5th Army Area Intelligence School and served as a Strategic Intelligence Staff Officer with the rank of major. He has published numerous articles on Oklahoma legal history, political history race relations. He states that he is a member of the VFW and a lifelong supporter of Christians United for Israel and AIPAC. He also previously worked as a country music DJ.
Cassity ran for the same U.S. Senate seat six years ago and received 11 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary. In 1970, he also ran for Oklahoma’s 6th Congressional District U.S. House seat but lost with 36 percent of the vote.
Platform: Listed in his campaign announcement on Facebook, Cassity’s platform centers on a return to constitutional and economic justice with an emphasis on expanding Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP and Social Security. He also favors a stronger national defense to be paid for by tax increases on the nation’s billionaires and supports closer ties with allies in Israel and NATO.
“Now is the time for all Americans of all parties to join together for a return to the respect for constitutional law and the preservation of American Democracy,” Cassity wrote in a Facebook post.
Links:Â Facebook
Troy W. Green
Age:Â 59
Profession/background: According to his website, Troy W. Green is a small business owner and security specialist. He spent more than 30 years teaching martial arts and 30 years combined in law enforcement, juvenile detention and private security. He founded Safe Haven Oklahoma, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting human trafficking and child exploitation. Additionally, he is a longtime member of the Patriot Guard Riders and a VFW support member.
Green earned a bachelor’s degree in history with minors in English and philosophy and is pursuing a master’s degree in criminal justice at the University of Oklahoma.
Platform: Green’s platform, which he calls the Green Agenda, is built around five proposed pieces of legislation listed on his website. His G.R.E.E.N. Act — Growing Rural Equity, Empowerment and Navigation — aims to revitalize rural communities, expand health care access, improve infrastructure and restore public trust through government transparency. His Unhoused Protection and Housing Stability Act would emphasize homelessness prevention, renter stabilization and affordable housing expansion.
His proposed Freedom to Thrive Act would seek to enhance worker protections, expand childcare access and strengthen labor rights. His proposed Guardians and Safe Haven Act would target child exploitation, human trafficking, foster care reform and survivor support.
“As an abandoned and abused child, I was raised by the streets of southern Oklahoma in the foster care system,” Green said in his official campaign video. “While people like me were fighting just to survive, billionaires and corrupt politicians were stacking the deck against everyday people like you.”
Green has also voiced support for higher wages, affordable higher education and fair trade policies to protect Oklahoma jobs. Additionally, he has called for a full release of the Epstein files.
“For too long, the people making the decisions haven’t lived the consequences, and that’s why those decisions keep falling short,” Green said. “When you’ve lived the struggle, you don’t just talk about change: you fight for it.”
While the five Democratic candidates face long odds in a heavily Republican state, their primary contest has still featured intraparty friction. In April, Green issued a formal press release disavowing attacks on fellow Democratic candidate N’kiyla Jasmine Thomas and her Indigenous heritage.
“Attacking someone’s identity, background, or culture has no place in our politics and it needs to stop immediately,” Green wrote. “If you support my campaign, I ask that you do not participate in that kind of behavior.”
In the same statement, Green said he had also been the subject of what he described as repeated personal attacks and false claims leading up to the primary.
“Democrats cannot afford to tear each other down,” he wrote. “The real fight is not with one another — it is with the policies and leadership that have failed the people of Oklahoma for years.”
Thomas publicly acknowledged Green’s statement, but she said in a now deleted Facebook post that accountability “doesn’t stop at statements” and called on Green to examine the people and organizations he aligns himself with. She also alleged the “doxxing” of her campaign email address — which she said had been shared without her consent — and accused unnamed parties of running smear campaigns and targeted attacks against her.
Jim Priest
Age:Â 70
Profession/background: Jim Priest is a lawyer, ordained minister and nonprofit leader from Oklahoma. He spent more than 40 years as an employment-law trial attorney representing and advising people in workplace disputes, according to his website. With gigs as an executive coach and mediator served, Priest has also served as CEO of two major Oklahoma City nonprofits — Goodwill Industries of Central Oklahoma and Sunbeam Family Services — that provide workforce development and critical services to families and individuals in need.
In 2010, Priest ran for Oklahoma attorney general but lost the election after receiving only 35 percent of the vote.
Platform: Listed on his website, Priest’s platform is organized around the acronym FAIR. Regarding family finances, he supports lowering grocery and household costs, expanding affordable childcare, building workforce housing, protecting seniors on fixed incomes and growing better-paying jobs. He calls for keeping rural hospitals open, expanding mental health and addiction care, fully funding public schools and raising teacher pay, investing in rural communities and building out broadband statewide to ensure Oklahomans access to resources
In order to inspire confidence in government, he supports banning congressional stock trading, holding law enforcement accountable and restoring funding for national service programs. Lastly, he supports ending what he calls “reckless” tariffs, restoring Congress’ authority and rebuilding relationships with U.S. allies in order to restore America’s reputation.
“What unites us is far greater than anything that divides us,” Priest said in a video on his website. “We all want a better life for our kids, health care we can afford and food on the table. It’s so simple, but it’s gotten so lost.”
N’kiyla Jasmine Thomas
Age:Â 31
Profession/background: According to her website, N’kiyla Jasmine Thomas is a nurse, active-duty military spouse and proud Chickasaw Nation citizen. Born and raised in Ardmore, she and her husband have two children — a son, who was diagnosed with Level 2 autism at age 2, and a daughter.
Thomas said on her website that she encountered unethical practices and discrimination while pursuing her nursing education and fought back, which she said exposed corruption within the Tennessee Board of Nursing and sparked her interest in public policy. She has been a lifelong advocate for LGBTQ rights, noting that her mother is gay.
Platform:Â Thomas’ platform spans health care, infrastructure, education, civil rights and economic justice, which are all listed on her website. She supports protecting and expanding the Affordable Care Act, expanding rural health care and reining in private insurers managing Medicaid. Educationally, she supports reducing class sizes, fully funding special education and school lunches, and ensuring competitive teacher pay.
On economic issues, she supports a living wage, strong price gouging protections and investment in affordable housing. She supports restoring a federal right to abortion access, expanding autism and disability services, strengthening foster care oversight, protecting tribal water sovereignty and codifying marriage equality. She has also called for expanding the number of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives to ensure fairer representation.
“I was seeing all the inequities in the system, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it, or anyone else, without our political ecosystem (…) actually moving with the Oklahomans,” Thomas said in an interview with Fox23. “I decided there was no better time than now for me to actually step up.”
In April, Thomas called out online harassment targeting her mixed-race identity. Thomas, who describes herself as Black, white and Native American, posted on Facebook that someone had taken videos from her official campaign TikTok and turned them into a mockery. The posts, she said, mocked her race, voice and identity — comparing her to U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) and calling her various slurs.
“They called me ‘confused,'” Thomas wrote. “Mocked my accent. Dismissed my beliefs.”
On April 15, the Thomas campaign issued a formal press release announcing it had rejected its endorsement from Organizing Okies. Alleging that the organization was applying scrutiny unevenly, the campaign said the organization had requested extensive clarification on Thomas’ professional credentials, public representations and personal background.
“Too often, individuals from marginalized communities, particularly women of color, are asked to prove what others are freely assumed to be,” the release stated.
Ervin Stone Yen
Age:Â 71
Profession/background: Dr. Ervin Stone Yen is a physician from Oklahoma City, where he has lived since he was 4 years old, according to an interview with KSWO. From 2014 to 2018, Yen represented State Senate District 40 in OKC as a Republican. Yen was the first Asian American elected to the Oklahoma Legislature, but he lost his reelection bid in the 2018 GOP primary. In 2022, he ran for governor as an independent and received about 1.4 percent of the vote.
He received a bachelor’s of science in zoology from the University of Oklahoma where he went on to complete medical school and an anesthesiology residency.
During his time in the State Senate, Yen pushed legislation that led to Oklahoma’s texting and driving ban in 2015. Additionally, he served as chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, repeatedly drawing the ire of parental rights advocates who wanted Yen to hear bills loosening vaccine mandates.
Platform: According to his website, Yen’s platform centers on three areas: medicine and public health, education and public safety and justice reform. Regarding health care, he supports keeping politicians out of medical decisions, expanding funding for rural hospitals and strengthening the national emergency stockpile. During his time in the State Senate, he said he was often the only voice opposing what he called dangerous medical misinformation, and he wrote the law banning minors from using commercial tanning beds.
Yen supports treating teachers as highly trained professionals, ensuring federal education dollars reach classrooms rather than administrative overhead, and protecting public school funding from what he describes as schemes that drain money from rural and inner-city districts. Advocating for public safety, he calls for shifting federal funding toward mental health and addiction treatment, providing police with specialized mental health response units and implementing rehabilitation programs to reduce recidivism.
“I’m sick and tired of these far-right extremists and far-left extremists talking about things that most Oklahomans really don’t care about,” Yen said in a 2022 interview with KSWO.
Links:Â Website
