What could Super Tuesday tell us about the future of Oklahoma politics?

The outcome of Tuesday's presidential primary may be a foregone conclusion with former President Donald Trump enjoying considerable support in Oklahoma.

But around the margins, Super Tuesday results could tell another story.

For the first time in eight years, Trump will appear on the primary ballot with a legitimate contender in Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina. So far this election cycle, Haley has failed to garner enough support to directly challenge Trump, but she does offer an alternate choice for those who don't want to pick the former president.

When the votes are counted, Trump and Haley's totals could give valuable insight into the attitudes and expectations of those who showed up to the polls.

"There's a lot you can take away, even if the result is not anything unexpected," said James Davenport, an associate dean and professor at Rose State College. "There's a lot you can take away from where voters are distributed geographically, the strength of that vote and what that vote tells you about what you need to do to successfully get your party motivated to show up and vote in November."

Why knowing about Oklahoma primary voters is important to candidates and their campaigns

Primary voters are often a party's most dedicated loyalists, and Trump's brand of politics has created a hardcore base of voters who have stuck with him for the past eight years. But Trump's political movement isn't universally accepted within the Republican Party, a fact that led to multiple primary challengers in the early days of the race.

Trump's most prominent GOP opponent still campaigning is Haley – the former governor and diplomat who got just 40% of the vote in her home state.

A deep analysis of the primary vote could give other campaigns a clue about who's showing up to vote this year. Davenport said Democrats could scour the results for insight on moderate voters as the party struggles to regain seats lost to the GOP. Republicans, on the other hand, could identify areas where the conservative base needs to be strengthened.

"And these presidential primary elections can tell the party what kind of candidate might best be successful in a particular area," he said. "There's quite a bit of good information that they can take away from this this presidential primary election to prepare them for the general election."

The unpredictability of politics

Predicting politics is tricky. Voters have a right to behave unexpectedly. Despite that, trends in electoral results are a valuable tool for parties and political operatives who have limited resources and time to secure a victory.

Blake Allen, an Oklahoma attorney and former campaign adviser, said he's interested in watching how Haley performs in the Oklahoma City suburbs. Specifically, Edmond and western Oklahoma City.

"I think that those two areas are somewhere to watch, because Haley's strength probably indicates a more potentially Biden-friendly electorate," he said.

If the GOP primary results in Oklahoma County indicate a growing anti-Trump sentiment, it could signal that a Democrat is within striking distance of winning Oklahoma County for the first time since Lyndon B. Johnson's victory 60 years ago.

In 2020, Trump narrowly won Oklahoma County with 49% to Biden's 48%.

Allen noted that Haley supporters tend to have a higher level of education and are more politically moderate than other voters in the GOP primary who now support Trump.

"Those are the type of voters who have swung Democrat since 2016. And those types of voters tend to be more concentrated in urban areas. Urban and suburban (areas) are where Democrats are still finding their strength, post-rural white working class collapse of the mid-2000s," said Allen.

"I think that as far as that goes, as always, in all the more recent political fights in Oklahoma, the suburbs are the place to watch. They're moving slowly, but they're moving."

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma primary elections: What the presidential results could tell us