Is the Establishment’s Lead Endorser on Thin Ice?
I suspect that endorsements don’t move votes in Oklahoma politics the way they once did.
But during the recently concluded election cycle, there was still one political personality upon whom the state’s establishment candidates depended heavily: Markwayne Mullin.
If an establishment-backed candidate was running in your area, there was a good chance that, during the final days of the campaign, your phone lit up with a text message or social-media post featuring that candidate awkwardly attempting to shake Mullin’s hand.
The pictures were remarkably similar.
There was the candidate. Then there was Mullin, forced into awkward handshakes with an array of the state’s most slimy establishment politicians, set against a strange, placeless backdrop—one of those political liminal spaces that made the entire production feel more than just a little surreal.
It was an interesting dynamic because I have never been convinced that Mullin commands much more than a fraction of the organic grassroots enthusiasm once enjoyed by, say, a mid-2000s Tom Coburn—or even Kevin Stitt at the height of his popularity in 2022.
Part of that is Mullin’s temperament.
He has repeatedly involved himself in loud, unnecessary confrontations with prominent personalities from various parts of the Republican coalition, including Matt Gaetz and Rand Paul.
And even when Mullin’s anger was directed toward the left, as it was during his bizarre near-throwdown with Teamsters President Sean O’Brien in a Senate committee room, his intemperance mostly served to make socialist Senator Bernie Sanders appear to possess gravitas.
When Bernie Sanders must become the cool-headed adult in the room, something has gone terribly wrong.
Then there was Mullin’s prolific stock-market activity.
His transactions became the subject of recurring social-media discussion, and the controversy grew when it was reported that he had failed to disclose multiple stock purchases within the deadline required by the STOCK Act.
Thus, when President Trump elevated Mullin from the United States Senate to secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Mullin received a significant political upgrade.
He now had a Cabinet title. He had a national platform and frequent national television appearances, where he spoke directly to Fox News viewers who weren’t necessarily the same component of the state’s Republican electorate as the engaged grassroots who follow the day-to-day.
This was good news for the establishment, as during the closing days of the Oklahoma primary, Mullin’s image in that surreal political liminal setting dominated the establishment’s final barrage of campaign spam. Candidate after candidate wanted voters to know that Markwayne Mullin was his “friend.”
Trump’s appointment had given Mullin the opportunity to demonstrate his continued influence over Oklahoma politics, while candidates who might otherwise struggle to establish grassroots credibility received a little reflected Trumpian glow.
But there’s a pretty good chance this is the last time that Mullin will be able to bail out the establishment.
Just as Mullin’s temperament has already produced conflicts with Gaetz, Paul, and other well-known figures within the broader Trump coalition—and that was in the much less pressure-fueled environment of Congress—he has now entered the most demanding, high-pressure, and unforgiving political environment in America: the Trump administration.
Will Mullin eventually lose control of his temper, misread the president, or otherwise become involved in the type of confrontation that has sent so many previous Trump appointees into political exile?
A few days ago, we may have seen the first crack.
According to news reports, Mullin directed immigration officials to temporarily halt most ICE vehicle stops.
Aside from the fact that this was an inexplicably nonsensical decision—taking a foremost enforcement tool away from those already taking on the challenge of protecting the nation from invasion—there was one other problem: Mullin apparently had not briefed Trump before word of the decision began to leak. This led to the belief that Mullin had made a political decision, getting in the way of enforcement so as to benefit a Republican senator, and former Mullin colleague, who is up for re-election, in whose state the agency’s actions had proven controversial.
Trump promptly overruled him and ordered the traffic stops to continue. According to The Wall Street Journal’s account, the president had been caught off guard by Mullin’s action.
If all of that reporting is true—and as always when dealing with the big corporate media, that’s a big if—this wasn’t a minor issue.
Immigration enforcement is one of the defining policies of the Trump presidency. Mullin had attempted to halt a key enforcement tactic, failed to notify the president, and then watched as Trump publicly reversed his decision, revealing just how precarious Mullin’s position—and therefore his Oklahoma endorsement power—may be.
For Oklahoma grassroots conservatives, Mullin’s continuing popularity presents something of a worst-case scenario.
For whatever reason, he has shown little hesitation in spending that credibility on behalf of the consultant class and the monied establishment. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to identify an instance in which Mullin extended the same high-profile assistance to a genuine grassroots challenger running against the Capitol’s entrenched interests.
For the moment, Mullin may refill some of his depleted political reserves through his national position and frequent television appearances.
But much of that renewed credibility is borrowed from Trump.
If Mullin eventually suffers a serious break with the White House, the reflected glow disappears. He joins the long list of former Trump appointees whose national prominence proved intense but temporary.
And if that happens, Oklahoma’s establishment loses one of the few statewide political personalities whose name may still influence Republican primary voters.
That raises a larger question:
Who would take his place?
I would suggest that T.W. Shannon, the Republican Party’s nominee for lieutenant governor, will come under pressure to fill Mullin’s king maker shoes, but his relationship with establishment elements aside, I don’t believe he has the bad judgment to be used in this way.
And, there simply does not appear to be an obvious statewide personality with comparable endorsement power. Instead, we may have received a hint as to the future endorsement strategy, as the establishment increasingly relied upon a decentralized collection of local endorsers during this election cycle—most notably, county sheriffs.
Time and again, local law-enforcement officials loaned their credibility to the candidates of the consultant class and the monied special interests.
That does not necessarily mean these sheriffs understood what they were doing.
Many likely knew the candidate personally. They may be deceived like so many voters who are trapped in the Matrix, with no red pill to save the day. They see a seemingly conservative Republican asking for help. They do not see the sick, corrupt machine standing behind him.
That is why, if your local sheriff was one of those endorsers, it may be time to begin educating him about the reality of the Capitol.
Show him the votes. Show him the scorecards. Show him how powerful forces campaign as conservatives while governing as anything but conservatives. Show him how the machine spends the credibility of well-meaning local officials who do not realize that they are being recruited to play a small role in a much larger grift.
One need only look at Kevin Stitt to understand the danger.
Stitt possessed genuine conservative instincts and considerable grassroots credibility. Yet that credibility was repeatedly enlisted on behalf of establishment legislators who, once safely reelected, returned to the Capitol and obstructed his agenda, overrode him, and ran over him.
Stitt never seemed to understand the game soon enough to stop playing it.
And that is the larger story behind all those awkward Mullin photographs.
The establishment cannot sell its record on its own merits. Instead, it must sell associations:
Markwayne Mullin is my friend.
The sheriff supports me.
Every photograph is an attempt to borrow someone else’s credibility and paste it over a legislative record that the candidate would prefer voters never examine.
For now, Mullin remains the establishment’s leading statewide endorser—and the fact that it relies upon him so heavily demonstrates just how few establishment personalities retain meaningful credibility with Oklahoma’s Republican voters.
But after the ICE traffic-stop debacle, a crack has appeared.
Perhaps Mullin will repair it.
Or perhaps Oklahoma’s establishment just watched its last dependable statewide endorsement personality step onto the thin ice that has swallowed so many Trump appointees before him.
Is the Establishment’s Lead Endorser on Thin Ice?
Click the title to read the full report at Jason Murphey Blog
July 29, 2026 at 08:42AM - J Murphey
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