AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Oklahoma’s state primary

WASHINGTON (AP) — A combination of term-limits, retirements, aspirations for higher office and one high-profile presidential appointment have triggered a wave of open seats in Oklahoma’s state primary on Tuesday.

Voters will select nominees to replace departing federal and state officials ranging from U.S. senator and representative to governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and state legislator. They’ll also decide whether to renominate some incumbents for another term and consider a statewide ballot measure on the minimum wage.

Among the most notable open-seat contests are the primaries to replace term-limited Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt.

The crowded nine-person Republican primary ballot includes state Attorney General Gentner Drummond; former state Secretary of Public Safety Chip Keating, who is the son of former Gov. Frank Keating; former state Sen. Mike Mazzei; and former state House Speaker Charles McCall.

The Democratic field includes state House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson and former state Sen. Connie Johnson.

President Donald Trump opened up another high-profile seat in Oklahoma when he named Republican U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin to replace fellow Republican Kristi Noem as Department of Homeland Security secretary. Mullin's appointed replacement, U.S. Sen. Alan Armstrong, opted not to seek a full term.

The Republican primary to replace Mullin and Armstrong features U.S. Rep. Kevin Hern and four others. Five Democrats seek the nomination, including attorney and minister Jim Priest. Hern and Priest lead their respective fields in campaign fundraising, although the Hern campaign’s $6.8 million in available cash as of May 27 far eclipses the $118,000 the Priest campaign had.

Trump has endorsed Mazzei for governor and Hern for U.S. Senate.

Candidates must receive a majority of votes in the primary to win the nomination. Otherwise, the top two vote-getters in the primary will advance to an Aug. 25 runoff.

Also on the ballot Tuesday is State Question 832, which would raise the state minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 per hour by 2029. Starting in 2030, it would tie future minimum wage increases to cost of living increases.

Oklahoma is solidly Republican in general elections. It had Trump’s fifth highest vote share of any state in the 2024 presidential election. A Democrat hasn’t carried Oklahoma in a presidential race since President Lyndon Johnson in 1964.

The state last elected a Democrat for governor in 2006 and for U.S. Senate in 1990.

Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:

Polls close at 7 p.m. CT, which is 8 p.m. ET.

The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in contested primaries for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, treasurer, state school superintendent, labor commissioner, insurance commissioner, corporation commissioner, state Senate and state House, as well as for the statewide ballot measure.

Voters registered with a political party may participate only in their own party’s primary. Democrats may not vote in the Republican primary or vice versa. State parties have the option to allow independent or unaffiliated voters to participate in their primaries, but none has done so for 2026 elections. All registered voters may cast ballots on the statewide ballot measure.

As of May 31, there were about 2.4 million registered voters in Oklahoma, including about 1.3 million registered Republicans, 614,000 registered Democrats and 495,000 independent voters not registered with any party.

Roughly 360,000 votes were cast in the Republican primaries in 2022, compared with about 168,000 in the Democratic primaries. This was about 16% and 7% of registered voters at the time, respectively.

In the 2022 state primaries, about 10% of the Republican primary vote and about 13% of the Democratic primary vote was cast early in person or by mail.

As of Friday, about 35,000 ballots had already been cast in Tuesday’s election. That includes about 21,000 ballots from Republicans, about 12,000 from Democrats and about 2,000 from voters not affiliated with any party.

Almost every county in Oklahoma releases all or almost all of its results from early in-person and mail voting in the first vote update of the night, usually before any results from in-person Election Day voting are released.

In the 2022 state primary, the AP first reported results at 8:10 p.m. ET, or 10 minutes after polls closed. By 10:30 p.m. ET, more than 90% of the votes had been counted. The last vote update of the night was at 12:33 a.m. ET, with about 99.9% of total votes counted.

The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

Oklahoma does not have automatic recounts for elections involving candidates, but candidates may request and pay for one regardless of the vote margin. The state does require automatic recounts for statewide ballot questions if the margin is 0.5% or less of the total votes cast. The required margin is larger for state constitutional amendments. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.

As of Tuesday, there will be 70 days until the Aug. 25 runoff and 140 days until the Nov. 3 midterm elections.

Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.

FILE - Oklahoma Secretary of Public Safety Chip Keating attends a news conference, May 7, 2020, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

FILE - Former Oklahoma state Sen. Connie Johnson address the media before protestors deliver petitions against the death penalty to the office of Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, Jan. 11, 2023, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

FILE - Oklahoma House minority leader Rep. Cyndi Munson, D-Oklahoma City, gestures during a news conference following the State of the State address, Feb. 6, 2023, in Oklahoma City. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki, File)

FILE - Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond testifies during a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing on Capitol Hill, Jan. 10, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, File)

FILE - Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt speaks with an individual following an event at the National Governors Association Winter Meeting, Feb. 19, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Stock markets are rallying worldwide Monday, and oil prices are easing after the United States and Iran reached a tentative deal to extend their ceasefire and reopen the Strait of Hormuz to get the global flow of crude going again.

The S&P 500 rose 1.9% on hopes that this time, the announcement of an Iran-U.S. agreement will mean a long-term fix to a conflict that has worsened inflation around the world. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 705 points, or 1.4%, as of 1:32 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 3% higher.

Stocks got a lift after the price for a barrel of Brent crude oil fell 4.8% to $83.14, back to where it was in early March. While that’s still higher than its price of roughly $70 from before the war more than three months ago, it’s lower than the $100 plus it cost just a few weeks ago. The hope is that lower oil prices will take pressure off households and businesses, which have had to pay higher prices for everything from food to fuel to fertilizer because of the war with Iran.

Iran confirmed the agreement but signaled its implementation would not start until it’s signed, which Pakistan said would happen Friday in Switzerland. Broader negotiations on issues like Iran’s nuclear program are expected to continue over the next 60 days. That leaves opportunity for hiccups that could derail the agreement. And even if the deal does reopen the Strait of Hormuz, it will take months for the energy industry to get back to full speed.

For now, though, relief swept through financial markets worldwide.

On Wall Street, stocks of companies with big fuel bills were instant winners. United Airlines flew 4.7% higher, American Airlines climbed 3.3% and cruise operator Carnival rose 3.6%.

Stocks of companies enmeshed in the artificial-intelligence industry also jumped. These stocks have yo-yoed sharply in recent weeks, going from roaring to records to suddenly turning lower. The big concern is whether such stocks shot too high, too fast because of AI mania, and their careening moves have sometimes reversed direction by the hour.

Micron Technology rallied 9.8%, and Advanced Micro Devices rose 7.2%. Nvidia’s climb of 3.6% was the strongest force pushing the S&P 500 upward because the AI chip company is Wall Street’s most valuable company, giving it more weight on the index than any other.

SpaceX, Elon Musk’s rocket company that also owns the AI company xAI, rose 14.2% in its second day of trading on Wall Street. Its successful debut on the Nasdaq suggested plenty of demand still exists among investors for AI. The market has given SpaceX a total value of more than $2.1 trillion, making it bigger than Exxon Mobil, Bank of America and Coca-Cola combined.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased on hopes that lower oil prices will remove pressure on central banks worldwide to raise interest rates.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.47% from 4.48% late Friday.

Europe’s central bank last week became the first major one in the world to raise interest rates to combat high inflation. High interest rates can keep a lid on inflation, but they also slow economies and undercut prices for all kinds of investments, including stocks and cryptocurrencies. They hit investments seen as the most expensive in particular, and some critics are calling the AI industry a bubble where investment inflated too far.

The Fed will announce its latest decision on interest rates later this week, which will be the first under its new chair, Kevin Warsh. President Donald Trump nominated Warsh to the position, and Trump has been loudly calling for lower interest rates.

But traders see it as a near certainty that the Fed will leave its main interest rate steady after its two-day meeting ends Wednesday. Traders had been raising bets that the Fed may actually have to raise interest rates this year because of how high inflation has gotten and how solid the U.S. job market remains.

But the tentative deal between the United States and Iran means traders are now betting on only a 58% chance of a hike this year, down from 71% a week ago, according to data from CME Group.

Elsewhere on Wall Street, Roku fell 0.9% after the company announced that Fox Corp. is buying the streaming pioneer in a cash-and-stock deal valued at approximately $22 billion.

Roku's stock had already soared 20% Friday, when early media reports emerged about a deal, which will give Fox access to the Roku channel, first-party data and more than 100 million global streaming households. Fox's stock fell 16.1%.

In stock markets abroad, indexes climbed in Asia and Europe. Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 5% for one of the world’s biggest gains and finished at a record.

“This is great news,” said Takashi Hiroki, chief strategist at Monex. “Buying by foreign investors is leading the market with expectations of easing tensions around the situation in the Middle East.”

South Korea’s Kospi surged even more, 5.2%, thanks in part to continued rallies for AI winners like Samsung Electronics.

London's FTSE 100 was an outlier and slipped 0.4%.

AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach and Senior Producer Mayuko Ono contributed to this report.

Options trader, and New York Knicks fan Ousama Fayek works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, June 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Options trader, and New York Knicks fan Ousama Fayek works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, June 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Trader Daniel Kryger, left, works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, June 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Trader Patrick Casey works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Wednesday, June 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Specialist Gregg Maloney works at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Monday, June 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Currency traders watch monitors at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, June 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

A dealer walks past a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at a dealing room of Hana Bank in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, June 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)