Oklahoma Democrats win state Senate seat in red-district special election

Democrats in Oklahoma picked up a key state Senate seat in a Tuesday special election, marking the fourth seat Democrats have gained in special elections in the state this year.

The Tulsa World reports Democrat Allison Ikley-Freeman won a close race over Republican Brian O’Hara in Oklahoma’s Senate District 37. The race was held to fill the seat of Republican Dan Newberry, who was leaving the state Senate.

Ikley-Freeman, a 26-year-old lesbian, defeated O’Hara by 31 votes.

{mosads}”The odds were not in our favor, and we knew it, but we knew if we could fight hard, we had a chance,” Ikley-Freeman told NBC News. “It was worth fighting for.”

The normally conservative district, which is in Tulsa County and is part of Oklahoma’s 1st Congressional District, was won by President Trump by nearly 40 points in the 2016 presidential election. Trump picked up 61.4 percent of the vote in the district compared to 32.7 won by then-Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Ikley-Freeman’s victory comes a week after Democrats saw victories across the country, including sweeping statewide elections in Virginia and winning the New Jersey governor’s race.

The party also saw several historic elections, including the first openly transgender woman elected to the Virginia House of Delegates and the first openly transgender woman of color elected to the Minneapolis City Council.