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Oklahoma remained firmly Republican in the 2026 midterm elections, but Democrats made significant gains in the state's largest counties, flipped six Republican-held legislative seats and nearly pulled off an upset in the Fifth Congressional District. So was this a temporary Democratic wave, or are Oklahoma's political loyalties beginning to change? On this episode of Listen Frontier , Executive Ed...

Oklahoma has spent years trying to figure out how to get more kids reading at grade level. And while lawmakers have passed a number of reforms over the years, making those reforms stick has been a different challenge. Now, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is trying something a little different. The newly formed Oklahoma Reading Caucus brings Republicans and Democrats together to oversee the impleme...

Hey everybody, I'm Dylan Goforth, executive editor of The Frontier, and welcome to Listen Frontier. It's Thursday, November 5, and we've now had a couple of days to digest the results of Tuesday's midterm elections. And I wanted to spend a little time talking about what happened here in Oklahoma, because I think there's a really interesting story emerging from these results. If you just looked at...

Imagine struggling with drug addiction and being offered a chance to start over. Free treatment in Southern California, a place to stay, and people promising to help you get your life back on track. For some Oklahomans, that offer sounded too good to pass up. But what happened when they got to California was a lot different from what they expected. In a new investigation, The Frontier's Kayla Bran...

Frontier Executive Editor Dylan Goforth spoke with Jena Nelson, a Democrat running to unseat Republican Rep. Stephanie Bice in Oklahoma’s 5th Congressional District. Nelson discussed her efforts to appeal to Republican voters, her concerns about federal healthcare cuts and rising costs, and why she believes listening to constituents rather than following national party politics could help her flip...

Dylan Goforth: Before anyone was talking about Google or a data center, what exactly did the family — and tell us a little bit about the family there who signed that conservation easement — but what did they agree to when they signed it with Land Legacy, and what did Land Legacy receive in return? Michael Patton: W hat Land Legacy does is conservation easements, and that puts restrictions on land...

The Oklahoma City Republican wants to move child welfare out of DHS and combine several state programs under a new agency focused on children.

The Frontier spoke with pollster Pat McFerron about Mike Mazzei’s slim win over Gentner Drummond to secure the Republican nomination for governor. McFerron is president of the Oklahoma-based polling firm Cole Hargrave Snodgrass & Associates. For the full interview, listen to our podcast. Dylan Goforth: Let's talk about what we saw last night. It's funny: There were a lot of eyes on the electio...

Data centers are coming to Tulsa. Eventually. But that momentum has hit a pause. City leaders have unanimously approved a temporary moratorium on new data center development, stepping back amid growing concerns about what these massive projects could mean for Tulsa’s power grid, water supply and long-term growth. At the same time, data centers promise jobs, investment, infrastructure and a foothol...

Today on the Listen Frontier podcast, we’re talking about one of the more surprising political shakeups in Washington — the firing of Kristi Noem and the appointment of Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin to replace her. Noem was abruptly pushed out of her role leading the Department of Homeland Security by President Donald Trump, setting off a scramble over who would take over one of the federal gover...

In our latest investigation, reporter Nick Bowlin digs into a troubling question: What happens when families report salty, oily drinking water that leaves sores in their mouths — and the state declines to determine the cause? In “Salty, oily drinking water left sores in their mouths. Oklahoma refused to find out why,” Nick traces complaints of oilfield contamination, examines how regulators respon...

Frontier: Hey everyone. Welcome to another episode of listen frontier today. I am joined by Hart Brown, the president of artificial intelligence and transformation at Saxum. He also helped author Governor Stitt's Artificial Intelligence strategy for the state. Thanks for joining us today. I wondered if you would tell us a little bit first about yourself, your background and how you got involved in...

Immigration detention usually happens out of public view — inside private prisons, through sealed court filings, and far from scrutiny. But in Oklahoma, those cases are starting to surface. In recent months, immigrants who’ve lived in the U.S. for years — some for decades — have been jailed for months without bond hearings, even when they have no criminal convictions and deep ties to their communi...

For the past several months, Frontier reporter Clifton Adcock has been digging into one of the fastest-moving — and least transparent — developments in Oklahoma: the rapid rise of data centers. These facilities promise big investment, but they also bring enormous demands for power and water, and much of the planning has happened out of public view. In this week’s Q&A, Clifton walks us through...

Frontier: We spoke back in the spring about the cellphone bill you ran that would remove cell phones from classrooms. Catch our listeners up on where that stands today.  Seifried: It’s been in effect for almost two months in Oklahoma, and the results and the feedback have just been amazing. I heard from schools and administrators early on, talking about the lunchrooms being louder and the hal...

klahoma voters won’t choose their next governor for another year, but the Republican primary is already heating up. Recent polling from former Oklahoma House Speaker Charles McCall’s campaign suggests the race between McCall and Attorney General Gentner Drummond is closer than you might think. But as other candidates begin to join the fray, the Drummond camp says that’s not true.  The survey,...

This week on Listen Frontier , we’re looking at Operation SAFE, Governor Kevin Stitt’s effort to clear homeless encampments in Tulsa with the help of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol. The Frontier sat down with Gov. Stitt, who told me the operation isn’t about solving homelessness, but about enforcing the law. He said Oklahomans are experiencing “compassion fatigue,” and that many of the people removed...

Oklahoma is racing to attract data centers, facilities that store and process the information powering everything from streaming services to artificial intelligence, to the Sooner State. Governor Kevin Stitt has touted them as a cornerstone of economic growth, but as more projects roll into communities, residents and lawmakers are asking questions: How much water and electricity will these centers...

On Wednesday, Tulsa’s City Council is set to vote on an ordinance that would limit what Tulsans can do on sidewalks and medians. The proposed ordinance comes after two incidents, one in 2023, and one in 2024, where two separate people were killed while standing in center medians. Councilor Phil Lakin, who spoke to The Frontier on Monday about the ordinance, said it was about public safety. Many me...

Five years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark McGirt v. Oklahoma decision affirmed much of eastern Oklahoma as Indian Country, some towns are still issuing traffic and municipal tickets to tribal citizens. In this episode, we talk with reporters Clifton Adcock and Allison Herrera about their investigation into why this happens, how it plays out in municipal courts, and what that means for tri...

Chuck Hoskin Jr. has served as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation since 2019, leading the tribe through a period of historic legal shifts, economic investment, and political tension.  At the center of much of it is McGirt v. Oklahoma, the landmark 2020 U.S. Supreme Court decision that affirmed much of eastern Oklahoma remains reservation land. That ruling reshaped how justice is administe...

Oklahoma has officially adopted new social studies standards that require public school students to be taught about "discrepancies" in the 2020 presidential election — language critics say mirrors debunked conspiracy theories .  Despite the lack of evidence supporting claims of widespread voter fraud, the state’s new standards embed references that educators and parents fear could mislead stu...

In this episode of Listen Frontier, we sit down with Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt just days after the Thunder captured their first NBA championship — a moment that’s left the city buzzing. Holt reflects on what this unforgettable Finals series meant not just for basketball fans, but for the city itself. We talk about the energy in the arena, the grit of the team, and how the Thunder's run became...

Gentner Drummond. Ryan Walters. Matt Pinnell.  A year out from the 2026 primary elections, those three names have emerged as leaders to be Oklahoma’s next Republican candidate for governor. The catch? Only one of them has officially declared their candidacy. Drummond, Oklahoma’s Attorney General, has a large -— though not insurmountable lead — according to polling released Wednesday by Sooner...

House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson has entered a growing contest to replace Kevin Stitt as Oklahoma’s next governor. The odds are stacked against Munson - when election day rolls around next year, it will have been 20 years since Oklahoma last elected a Democrat as Governor. But that’s not slowing down Munson, who said she hopes to provide an alternative to the conservative candidates currently du...