Nonetheless, Cimarron County is singular for different causes. Oklahoma is the reddest of the crimson states. It’s the solely state the place Barack Obama didn’t carry a single county in both of his presidential races, whereas Donald Trump carried each county in each of his. In 2020, Mr. Trump gained Oklahoma by a whopping 33 factors. That accomplishment paled, nonetheless, in comparison with his electoral prowess in Cimarron County, the place he gained 92 p.c of the vote. Out of 1,054 votes forged within the final presidential election, Joe Biden gained 70.
“I don’t watch Fox Information — I assumed they went means too liberal over the past election.” The speaker was Clint Twombly, a former Border Patrol agent who’s working for sheriff. Standing contained in the cinder-block constructing the place the Boise Metropolis Rotary Membership meets each Wednesday at midday, Mr. Twombly delivered his first ever marketing campaign speech.
Like a lot of the locals I talked with, he dismissed any considerations over world warming. As a substitute, he stated, local weather change is all about “any person making an attempt to promote a e-book and earn money, slightly than something to do with science.” As for the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, he stated that “all in all, it appeared to me pretty innocuous.” Mr. Twombly was unaware that any cops had died after the assault.
That stated, you gained’t discover a lot adoration for Donald J. Trump right here. Regardless of the presence of the freeway named in his honor — “No one else needed it,” Jody Risley, who runs the Cimarron Heritage Heart, informed me — unease in regards to the character of the previous president, even earlier than his felony conviction, lingers. “He’s not a great individual,” Mr. Twombly stated. “He’s not any person I need on the dinner desk.”
However voting for the Democratic different is unthinkable. The final Democrat to hold Cimarron County was Jimmy Carter in 1976. Earlier than that it was Harry Truman. Cimarron is not any anomaly. There’s a 1,400-mile column of rural counties alongside the western Nice Plains, stretching from the Canadian border to Mexico, the place (other than a couple of counties dominated by Native reservations) voting Republican is a lifestyle. For those who ask Cimarron County locals what it might take for them to vote Democratic, you get platitudes about passing too many legal guidelines, or not implementing those we’ve got.
