(Update: On Tuesday, June 16, Sen. Tom Woods won election to represent Senate District 4.)
Northeast Oklahoma residents voting in the Senate District 4 Republican primary on June 16 will choose between a 31-year-old incumbent, rancher and member of the Air National Guard, and a former construction professional who preaches to a roughly 40-member nondenominational congregation in Gore.
The race between Sen. Tom Woods (R-Westville) and challenger Kenny Smith is one of several State Senate GOP primary contests that will determine next session’s balance of power in the Legislature’s upper chamber, which has seen about 10 Republican members clash with the official Republican Caucus leaders and identify as the Freedom Caucus.
Woods, who has been targeted for defeat by Freedom Caucus supporters as one of “The Swamp 7,” recognizes the dynamic on Tuesday’s ballots across the state.
“I think my race, along with a handful of others, is crucial to being a governing Republican,” Woods said in a May 27 interview. “If you go back and look, the Freedom Caucus did not even show up to vote on us trying to put on the ballot to repeal [Medicaid expansion] out of our constitution (…) I am sure Sen. Smith, if he ever gets the honor of being called that, would fall right in line with walking those kind of votes.”
Smith did not definitively say he would align with the Freedom Caucus, but he did distance himself from current Senate President Pro Tempore Lonnie Paxton (R-Tuttle) in an interview May 27.
“I have definitely looked at Sen. Woods and Paxton, and they just do not represent the values of our district. If you look at the green energy spending, the bigger government, the more spending, they are moving in a direction that is not representing our District 4 values,” Smith said. “At the same time, the Freedom Caucus, I am getting familiar with them. But it looks like on an overall scale, they are focused on the people and the constitution as it originally was written.”
Smith also said he is a “true conservative” and is guided by his faith, which he shares with others at Greater Dimensions Ministry.
In his campaign, Smith has also criticized Woods for missing votes, specifically one on House Bill 2767, which Smith claims on his website Woods missed “after taking a second job.” The bill was part of the incentive package for the controversial Inola aluminum smelter project revealed and passed during the penultimate week of the 2025 session, where Woods missed many votes on budget-package bills.
Woods, the vice chairman of the Senate Veterans and Military Affairs Committee, chalks up missed votes to his military service and conflicts with committee meetings.
“The job that he is criticizing me on is my being in the military. Our country was founded on military service, and I raised my right hand in military service to protect and defend the Constitution. And to be against someone for military service like he is, to me, is un-Republican and un-American,” Woods said. “Those votes that I have missed were all in service to this country in the military. And if there was a vote missed other than that, it would have been because I was in another committee in the Capitol.”
As a senator, Woods has been no stranger to criticism or how to push back against it. Shortly after being elected to the Legislature in 2022, Woods found himself in legal trouble after getting into a physical altercation with a local mechanic in Adair County. The mechanic, Dustin Stanley, had sued Woods over work done on his truck in 2019. The suit was dismissed because the statute of limitations had elapsed, but the two entered into a verbal altercation that turned physical at the Westville Melon and Barbecue Festival. Stanley admitted that he hit Woods first but claimed Woods had escalated the conversation.
Woods told NonDoc at the time that he did not need “people’s sympathy.” Instead, he simply did not “want to get punched in the face.” Stanley and Woods were both ticketed for disorderly conduct, but Woods’ ticket was dismissed in February 2023 because the ticketing officer did not personally witness the altercation, according to a court order.
Other comments made by Woods have also landed poorly over the years. During his initial run for office in 2022, Woods took heat for suggesting a primary opponent was incompetent and unfit for office because he had sought treatment for depression. The candidate Woods referenced, Hoguen Apperson, donated $2,000 to Smith in May, according to Smith’s pre-primary filing.
During a 2024 legislative forum, Woods used the word “filth” while referencing the LGBTQ community, a headline-generating remark that drew a rebuke from then-Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat (R-OKC). Woods said he stood behind “what I believe in.” While the situation drew outrage from around the state and nation, many in the deeply conservative SD 4 posted favorably of Woods’ comment on social media.
In all, the SD 4 GOP primary stands as an example of the rocky reality of the Senate Republican Caucus’ supermajority, which was exposed throughout the past two years, and in particular during the final two weeks of the 2026 session when the Senate adjourned unexpectedly, and leadership was met with open rebukes from the Freedom Caucus.
The winner of the SD 4 Republican primary will face Democrat Ellen Cuff in the November general election. Senate District 4 lies on the Arkansas border and includes parts of Delaware, Cherokee and Sequoyah counties, plus all of Adair County.
‘Too ugly to make it in Hollywood’
Smith is one of at least 11 Republican primary challengers who pledged to refuse lobbyist and special interest money. Smith has criticized Woods repeatedly, claiming he is beholden to special interests, a critique several Republican challengers are lobbing at incumbents.
Woods has pushed back on the claim and suggested the pledge was disingenuous.
“I am curious that they make that pledge, but then they go behind the scenes and they have all these dark money (political action committees) spend money on their behalf,” Woods said.
Woods said Smith is benefiting from dark money mailers attacking him as the incumbent.
“I am being attacked by a group called ‘Make Liberty Win,’ and it is out of Virginia,” Woods said. “It is curious that they say they do not take PAC money, but then they let PAC money come in and do [independent expenditures], door knocking and do all of their dirty work. So are they really not taking PAC money, or are they just saying that and then going in knowing that these [independent expenditure] groups are going to pick up their races and win it for them? And the IE group going against me, they are not mentioning anything positive about him. They are mentioning everything negative about me. So they are not really coming in trying to build him up. All they are doing is trying to tear me down.”
Make Liberty Win is a political action committee that originally registered at the federal level in 2019 and has waded into legislative races around the country. According to FEC filings, the group began quarter one of 2026 with nearly $3.5 million on hand and spent $700,000 in independent expenditures through March 30. Most recently, the PAC supported Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) in his primary against President Donald Trump-backed challenger Ed Gallrein. Massie ultimately lost.
A large portion of the contributions made to the organization in 2025-2026 came from Young Americans for Liberty, a Texas-based nonprofit that contributed more than $3.5 million.
On May 19, the organization registered as a political action committee in Oklahoma “supporting the election of pro-liberty candidates.” In a Facebook post May 7, the organization endorsed Smith and labeled Woods as “RINO,” an acronym commonly used to call politicians “Republican in Name Only.”
Smith said he was unaware of the endorsement or the group’s activity, which has included mailers to district residents that call Woods out for supporting film industry subsidies and “corporate welfare dressed up as economic development.” Some mailers feature a doctored photo of farmland with a “Hollywood” sign imposed with the phrase, “Your land. Their playground.”
“We are grateful for anyone that is supporting (us). We are just not taking personal campaign funds from them. But we are giving everybody the choice to choose,” Smith said. “We do not have any contact with them, because from everything I understand, they work independently with whomever they desire. We are just thankful that people are helping in any way they can.”
Woods shot back at Smith and the attacks, noting concerns with “a new crop of people” who view politics as a way to cultivate fame.
“It is people too ugly to make it in Hollywood, so Kenny Smith is going to run for office to be on TV,” Woods said.
Woods added that he feels Smith is not prepared for legislative work, suggesting a new incumbent would be less effective for SD 4 constituents.
“There is no amount of reading prior to getting elected, studying, or visiting with people that could really prepare me for the Legislature. And it is just like any other job you take on, there is a learning curve,” Woods said. “When you are dealing in the Legislature, you are dealing with other branches of government. You are dealing with, in the Senate, 47 other people and other districts. In the House, 101 members — and a governor. There is no way you can learn all the issues (quickly) enough to be up to speed in one or two sessions. It really takes a term to get the broad knowledge of so many different things.”
‘Absolutely unfounded’: Woods pushes back on Smith’s ‘liberal’ accusations
Although Woods and Smith agree on some of the hot-button topics in Northeast Oklahoma — protecting land from data centers and wind turbines, as well as the need for educational improvement — Smith claims Woods is a closet liberal and not a real conservative, citing his support for a number of bills, specifically those dealing with green energy and economic incentives.
“Al Gore, global warming, Democrat, (Barack) Obama, (Joe) Biden, green energy expansion is not a part of our conservative platform,” Smith said. “I am very thankful that I am an OKGOP-certified Republican and I honor those 35 pages which say we do not support unsustainable green energy. And so, green energy is not moderate. It is liberal ideology that comes from the Democratic Party.”
Over the phone, Smith cited four bills in particular that Woods supported that he believes are incompatible with Republican values:
- HB 2888, which appropriated $38.62 million to the Oklahoma Water Resources Board for water and wastewater system upgrades in northeast Oklahoma;
- SB 1177, which created an investment rebate program — tied to job and capital expenditure outputs — for the proposed Panasonic battery plant project that did not come to fruition;
- SB 1179, which appropriated $180 million to the Perform Fund, which was created by SB 1177, to pay investment rebates; and
- SB 224, which would have created the Oklahoma Education and Workforce Efficiency Data System to provide access to data on early childhood through secondary education, workforce training and employment outcomes. Woods was excused from the Senate floor vote on the bill, but he voted in support during committee hearings.
Smith’s website features additional votes by Woods that he considers “liberal” that often deal with economic incentives.
Woods, who is chairman of the Senate General Government and Transportation Subcommittee on Appropriations and Budget, brushed off the criticism and said the suggestion that he is a liberal is contradictory to his record.
“He claims that. I do not know how he justifies that with some of the public information out there on me and my military service and my voting record,” Woods said. “I am a small-government conservative, you can look back through all the tax stuff we voted on and [Oklahoma 2nd Amendment Association] bills we voted on and transparency pieces. So calling me a liberal is absolutely unfounded. There is no way you can support that. It is just someone desperate to get a job.”
