Democratic newcomer scores runoff upset in Oklahoma, vows to impeach Trump if elected

An unknown Democrat with no elected experience just beat a sitting state senator in an Oklahoma primary by promising to impeach a sitting president before she's even sworn in. That tells you something about where the energy in that party is right now. It's not jobs, not gas prices, not the border. It's still Trump, three years and two elections later.

Oklahoma is about as red as it gets, so this race was never going to decide control of the Senate. But primaries reveal priorities, and Democratic voters there just rewarded the candidate who ran furthest to the left on the one issue that has nothing to do with Oklahoma. Jim Priest had the résumé and the establishment lane. He lost it to someone whose central pitch was a promise she has no current ability to keep and would need an entire Congress to even attempt.

We'd have more respect for this if it were paired with an actual agenda for the state, something about oil workers, rural hospitals, or the farm economy. Instead the headline is impeachment, again, as if the last attempt taught nobody anything about how that plays outside the coastal press. Voters in flyover states tend to notice when a candidate's first promise to them is about Washington theater rather than their own communities.

None of this means Thomas can't run a real campaign between now and November. But a party that keeps nominating candidates whose opening line is "I'll impeach him" shouldn't be surprised when it keeps losing places like Oklahoma by 30 points.