Socialist Wins Primary in Major Blow to DNC

N’Kiyla Jasmine Thomas, a 31-year-old nurse and Chickasaw Nation citizen from Ardmore, won Oklahoma’s Democratic Senate runoff last week, another win for the party’s socialist-aligned left.

With nearly all votes counted, Thomas took 61.2 percent, or 79,201 votes. Attorney and minister Jim Priest finished with 38.8 percent, or 50,238.

The two had advanced from the June 16 primary. Thomas led a five-candidate field with 45.2 percent. Priest was second at 23.9 percent. Neither hit a majority, so the race went to a runoff.

Thomas is a political newcomer. She worked as a nurse and community health worker, raised about $57,000, and ran mostly on social media and grassroots organizing. Priest, 70, spent about $315,000 and had backing from former governors Brad Henry and David Walters and former Attorney General Drew Edmondson.

She calls herself a democratic socialist but says she is not yet a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. She told NBC News that democratic socialists are “the next generation” seeking to “change the system.” She has also said most socialist countries are “thriving.”

Her platform includes Medicare for All, universal childcare and parental leave, and a demand that “everyone pays their fair share.” She supports ending ICE as it currently operates, ending qualified immunity for ICE agents in civil-rights cases, and freezing expansion of the agency’s funding.

She also backs restoring *Roe v. Wade*, uncapping the House, LGBT protections, and opposing state limits on transgender students in sports. In a July interview with NPR affiliate KOSU, she said that if elected she would work in her first 100 days to “impeach, remove and convict” President Donald Trump.

The general-election opponent is Sen. Kevin Hern, appointed after Markwayne Mullin moved to Homeland Security. Oklahoma has not elected a Democratic senator since 1990. Hern is widely favored.

Thomas’s win fits a 2026 pattern. By late June, DSA-endorsed candidates had 35 primary victories, including upsets of House incumbents Adriano Espaillat in New York and Diana DeGette in Colorado. Last week in Florida, Angie Nixon, who joined DSA during her campaign, won a Democratic Senate primary over a better-funded rival.