Morning Digest: Oklahoma GOP wants voters to undo Medicaid expansion that voters already approved

And they're scheduling the vote to maximize Republican turnout

Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt wants Medicaid expansion out of his state’s constitution. (Credit: Kevin Stitt Facebook)

Leading Off

OK Ballot

Oklahoma’s Republican leaders want voters to delete Medicaid expansion from the state constitution this summer—and they have a second ballot measure ready if they don’t.

The state’s GOP-dominated House approved a referendum last month for the Aug. 25 ballot to repeal an amendment expanding Medicaid that voters narrowly passed in 2020.

It would also reenact the amendment as a statute, but lawmakers could freely alter or repeal that reconstituted law. That’s precisely why supporters of Medicaid expansion pursued a constitutional change in the first place, since they feared Republicans would seek to roll back a statutory initiative.

The plan is currently being considered by the state Senate, where Republicans also hold a supermajority.

Normally, such amendments only require a vote by lawmakers to go before voters, but because of the measure’s statutory component, the proposal would also require a signature from Gov. Kevin Stitt, who urged legislators to act earlier this year.

Stitt has argued that expansion of the program, which provides health insurance for lower-income Americans, has led to “massive spending growth while enabling waste.”

But opponents of the repeal effort point to the positive effects of expanding Medicaid, which has brought health care access to more than 5% of the state’s population, and have said Republicans are wrong to frame the program as an unwarranted drain on state resources.

“We believe that the legislature has the ability to fund the core functions of state government without limiting access to Medicaid,” Matt Glanville, a regional official at the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, told The Oklahoman. “It’s too important for lawmakers to be looking here for budget flexibility.”

Republicans, though, insist that the status quo is unsustainable.

“Putting Medicaid expansion in our Constitution was a mistake,” Speaker Kyle Hilbert, a co-author of the plan, told Oklahoma Voice. “It ties the hands of the Legislature who’s elected to represent the people of Oklahoma and limits our ability to address the pressing needs that we have.”

Stitt, who cannot seek a third term this year, similarly lambasted the program in his final State of the State address in February.

“Government dependency is a trap. It robs self-reliance and balloons budgets,” he proclaimed. “I always say government programs should be a trampoline, not a hammock, but too often that is not the case.”

The House has also approved a separate amendment for the November ballot that would authorize lawmakers to stop paying for Medicaid expansion if the federal government ceased to cover at least 90% of the costs. This plan, however, would only go before voters if they first reject the August referendum.

Democrats, though, believe that Republicans have plenty of other options to pay for healthcare—they just don’t want to use them.

“We collect a lot of revenue that we siphon back out into incentives and tax breaks for the wealthy and well-connected for their pet projects that they really love,” state Sen. Mary Boren told reporters. “There are a lot of conservative states that make sure that their people are educated, and they have a doctor.”

House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson, who is the leading Democrat running to replace Stitt, said that voters knew what they were doing six years ago when they put Medicaid expansion in the constitution in 2020.

“Maybe the people wanted our hands tied,” she told her colleagues last month.

Munson also highlighted the large cuts to Medicare in Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” to make her case that “[w]e’re only here and having this conversation mostly due to the federal government.”

She further charged that Republicans chose to hold the vote on Aug. 25, which is the date the state set aside for primary runoffs, because they believe turnout will favor them.

Nine Republicans are competing in the June 16 primary for governor, and it’s unlikely that any one of them will take the majority of the vote necessary to avert a second round of voting.

Munson, by contrast, has a good chance of defeating her two intraparty opponents in June. Such an outcome could make it more difficult for opponents of the referendum to mobilize Democrats, who are already outnumbered in this dark-red state, to turn out to vote “no” on the GOP’s referendum.

Columnist Janelle Stecklein also noted that registered independents, who cannot participate in party primaries but can vote for ballot measures, could also be caught off-guard by what she called the GOP’s “conniving” use of the calendar.

Republicans elsewhere, though, have learned the hard way how difficult it can be to sneak referendums past voters.

In 2023, Ohio’s GOP-controlled legislature placed an amendment on the August ballot that would have required all future constitutional amendments to win 60% of the vote instead of a simple majority.

Republicans hoped that, by holding a vote in the dead of summer, they could make it tougher for abortion rights supporters to approve their own amendment that November.

The effort’s most prominent Republican supporter, Secretary of State Frank LaRose, mused just before the election that he “wouldn’t be surprised” if turnout was “similar to” the 8% of registered voters who had shown up the previous August to participate in some low-profile contests.

But Republicans didn’t get the quiet campaign they wanted.

Opponents ran ads depicting an empty polling place as the narrator warned that “special interests” were “trying to sneak something through, hoping you won’t vote.”

LaRose was proven wrong—badly so—as close to 40% of voters showed up and defeated the GOP’s proposal 57-43. Three months later, they went on to approve the abortion rights amendment by that same margin.

Supporters of Oklahoma’s current policies are already warning that the 228,000 residents who need the state’s Medicaid expansion program would be in danger of losing crucial coverage if either of the GOP’s referendums were to pass.

“My conclusion isn’t we can’t afford it,” Chuck Hoskin, the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, told lawmakers Wednesday. “My conclusion is that this state can’t afford to lose Medicaid expansion, and I will do everything I can to try to protect it.”

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The Downballot Podcast

The progressive landslide in Wisconsin

It was a massive blowout for progressives up and down the ticket in Wisconsin on Tuesday night, capped by a rout in the race for the Supreme Court that saw liberals expand their hard-won majority. On this week’s episode of The Downballot podcast, co-host David Beard and guest host Joe Sudbay break down all of the top contests, as well as the special election for Marjorie Taylor Greene’s old seat, which saw another massive Democratic overperformance.

Beard then talks with G. Elliott Morris from Strength in Numbers about his new report on Donald Trump’s job approval broken down by congressional district, which shows Trump underwater in a huge number of Republican seats. Elliott explains how he produced this unique data set and tells us where Trump has lost the most ground—and with which groups of voters.

The Downballot podcast comes out every Thursday morning everywhere you listen to podcasts. Click here to subscribe and to find a complete transcript!

1Q Fundraising

• ME-Sen: Janet Mills (D): $2.6 million raised

• CA-01: Mike McGuire (D): $550,000 raised

• CA-22: Randy Villegas (D): $440,000 raised

• FL-02: Austin Rogers (R): $375,000 raised (in two months), additional $350,000 self-funded

• FL-19: Chris Collins (R): $905,000 self-funded, $306,000 cash on hand

• NJ-09: Nellie Pou (D-inc): $460,000 raised, $1.5 million cash on hand

• UT-01:

  • Ben McAdams (D): $580,000 raised, $815,000 cash on hand

  • Nate Blouin (D): $300,000 raised, $181,000 cash on hand

  • Riley Owen (R): $100,000 raised (in three weeks)

• UT-02:

  • Blake Moore (R-inc): $505,000 raised, $2.4 million cash on hand

  • Karianne Lisonbee (R): $150,000 raised (in three weeks)

• UT-03: Celeste Maloy (R-inc): $300,000 raised, $470,000 cash on hand

• VA-06: Beth Macy (D): $480,000 raised

• VA-07: Dorothy McAuliffe (D): $1.1 million raised (in three weeks), $1 million cash on hand

Senate

IA-Sen

VoteVets has now spent $2.65 million on ads to promote state Rep. Josh Turek in the June 2 Democratic primary for Senate in Iowa, reports the Des Moines Register. That sum is more than three times larger than the initial $825,000 buy the group announced two weeks ago.

VoteVets currently has the airwaves almost completely to itself at this point in the primary. Citing data from AdImpact, NOTUS’ Alex Roarty reports that Turek has spent just under $30,000, while state Sen. Zach Wahls has deployed about half that amount.

House

CA-11

SEIU California said Wednesday that it would no longer support state Sen. Scott Wiener in the June 2 top-two primary for the House seat that Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi is not seeking reelection to.

The influential labor organization previously announced in January that it was issuing a dual endorsement to Wiener and San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, both of whom are Democrats. The SEIU, though, has since come into conflict with Wiener over his opposition to Proposition D, a municipal ballot measure that backers have dubbed the “Overpaid CEO Act.”

This plan, which will also go before San Francisco voters on June 2, would increase taxes on large companies “when their highest-paid managerial employee earns more than 100 times the median compensation paid to their San Francisco employees.”

Wiener and Chan have come down on opposite sides on this question. Wiener told the news site Mission Local that he believes Proposition D’s passage would jeopardize “a consensus business tax reform” that voters approved in 2024.

Chan, for her part, argued it would help “make sure these corporations are paying their fair share in San Francisco.” The SEIU agrees, and Chan now has its sole endorsement in the race to succeed Pelosi.

The contest for the 11th District also features Democrat Saikat Chakrabarti, a wealthy political activist who also supports Proposition D.

Poll Pile

• FL-Sen: Public Policy Polling for Alex Vindman:

  • Ashley Moody (R-inc): 43, Alex Vindman (D): 40.

• CA-Gov (top-two primary): David Binder Research for Californians for a Fighter and SEIU California (pro-Swalwell):

  • Steve Hilton (R): 22, Eric Swalwell (D): 18, Chad Bianco (R): 13, Tom Steyer (D): 12, Katie Porter (D): 11, other candidates 5% or less.

  • January: Bianco: 17, Hilton: 14, Porter: 11, Swalwell: 11, Steyer: 8.

  • This survey was in the field April 1-6. Donald Trump endorsed Hilton on April 6. The previous poll was done for a different client, California Environmental Voters.