Bice: Horn `incredibly gracious' after defeat
U.S. Rep.-elect Stephanie Bice said Wednesday she was hoping for bipartisan cooperation on a new coronavirus relief package now that the election is over.
“There is room for
negotiation,” the Republican state senator said in an interview. “There is room for compromise.
“I hope that Speaker (Nancy) Pelosi will not continue to be partisan — as we've seen her be — with another CARES package or another relief package that needs to happen. Hopefully we'll see — now that
the election is over — some coming together and trying to actually govern again.”
B ice ,46, won the 5 th District congressional seat on Tuesday after a campaign in which she and outside groups attacked incumbent Democratic Rep. Kendra Horn relentlessly as a close ally of Pelosi, a California Democrat.
Complete but unofficial results show Bice received 158,044 votes, 52%, to Horn's 145,541 votes, 48%.
Bice, of Oklahoma City, said Horn called her Tuesday night after the outcome was clear and that the two had “a very nice conversation.”
“She offered whatever I needed to make sure that the transition was smooth and that any constituent issues that were outstanding that we had perspective on so we could continue to handle those for the district," Bice said. "She was just incredibly gracious and I appreciated that.”
In her remarks Tuesday night, Horn said the 5th District belonged to Oklahomans, not to a party.
“We changed minds and built a movement of support in a district that pundits thought was unwinnable,” Horn, 44, of Oklahoma City, said.
“When many voters in this district had lost faith that their vote counted for something, we gave them hope. That's a victory in itself. Our work for Oklahoma's 5th District is not over.”
Horn won the district in a huge upset over incumbent Republican Steve Russell in 2018, and immediately became a top target of the state and national Republican parties.
The national Democratic and Republican parties and outside groups aligned with them poured several million dollars into the central Oklahoma di s - tri ct, which includes most of Oklahoma County and Pottawatomie and Seminole counties.
Turn out in the district was more than 20% higher on Tuesday than it was in 2018, and Bice won Pottawatomie and Seminole counties by much bigger margins than Russell had.
Though Horn won the Oklahoma County part of the district, she didn't get big enough margins in the core area of Oklahoma City to offset Bice's wins in the rest of the county, including her Senate district in northwest Oklahoma City.
And though Horn had a big advantage in absentee voting by mail and in person, Bice overcame it with an advantage in Election Day voting.
“We knew that Republicans tend to want to get to the polls, even in this COVID scenario that we're working with,” Bice said Wednesday.
“Our poll showed a 48-44 lead for Bice with 8% undecided. It looks like undecided voters broke evenly. This is a Republican district. However, it is trending purple. The changing makeup of this district is likely to be different next year though when the Legislature is required to draw new district lines.”
Pollster Jackson Lisle, Amber Integrated
A purple district
Two polls in the last few weeks showed Bice with about a 4-point lead, which, in both, was within the margin of error.
Pollster Jackson Lisle, of Amber Integrated, who did one of the polls, said Wednesday, “This race turned out exactly as expected according to polling we released the week before.
“Our poll showed a 48-44 lead for Bice with 8% undecided. It looks like undecided voters broke evenly. This is a Republican district. However, it is trending purple. The changing makeup of this district is likely to be different next year though when the Legislature is required to draw new district lines.”
Bice will be the sixth different person to represent the district since 2000. And she will be the third woman, after Horn and Mary Fallin, who represented the district from 2007 to 2011.
Only four women have represented an Oklahoma district in Congress since statehood; the first was Alice Robertson, who s er ved an eastern Oklahoma district from 1921 to 1923.
Bice said her message to Horn supporters in the closely divided district was that she would seek their input and listen to them.
“Certainly we may differ on how we get t here,” she said. “But I will continue to be an advocate for Oklahomans, and that' s what I' ve done the last six years (in the Senate).”
A special election will be needed to fill Bice's seat in the 22nd District.
As a Republican in the state Legislature, B ice is used to serving in a supermajority. She will be in the minority for the first time when she takes office in January.
But Republicans did much better nationally in the House than polls and pundits suggested they would.
Horn was one of a few incumbent Democrats who lost re election bids, while Republicans appeared to have defended all of their seats.
Rep. Tom Cole, R-Moore, who easily won a new term on Tuesday, said House Republicans had been unified by the results and predicted Democratic angst would lead to divisions among the majority.
“I feel like we had a political goal line stand,” Cole said.