The Oklahoma State Capital

GUTHRIE, Okla. — Logan County Associate District Judge Diane Vaughan will keep her gavel after defeating challenger Sierra Pfeiffer in Tuesday’s general election.

Vaughan received 9,135 votes to Pfeiffer’s 6,626, taking just under 58 percent in the county’s only contested race for a county office. The results are unofficial.

Vaughan carried the Guthrie and Waterloo areas and won most of the county’s precincts. Pfeiffer carried Orlando, Mulhall, Marshall and Coyle. Crescent was nearly evenly divided, with just nine votes separating the two candidates.

The nonpartisan race brought professional campaign consulting to a traditionally low-profile contest. As The Oklahoma State Capital previously reported, Pfeiffer’s campaign paid Oklahoma City-based CAMP Political nearly $19,000 for services that included consulting and advertising.

The race also marked the first known involvement of dark money in a campaign for Logan County associate district judge. As voters were casting early ballots, Put Oklahoma 1st, LLC, sent a mailer backing Vaughan. The group, whose donors are undisclosed, had previously reported spending more than $5 million opposing the now Republican Gov.-elect Mike Mazzei in the Republican gubernatorial runoff.

Republican Gov.-elect Mike Mazzei carried all but two of Logan County’s precincts on Tuesday. Democrat Cyndi Munson won in Langston, a longtime Democratic stronghold, and narrowly edged Mazzei in the precinct that votes at First Christian Church in Guthrie.

Mazzei ran up some of his biggest margins in the Waterloo area, including along East Waterloo Road. In the county’s largest precinct, which votes at Charter Oak Baptist Church, Mazzei defeated Munson 1,177 to 608, a margin of 569 votes.

Elsewhere on the ballot, Logan County voters backed Republican state Reps. Molly Jenkins and Jim Shaw as both won reelection. Jenkins defeated Democrat Max Burchett with nearly 63 percent of the districtwide vote in House District 33, while Shaw took 74 percent against independent Andy Brown in House District 32.

The county also gave Republican U.S. Rep. Stephanie Bice a much-needed boost as she held off Democrat Jena Nelson in the 5th Congressional District. Bice led Nelson by 33.5 percentage points in the Logan County portion of the district, a margin of about 5,400 votes. That was more than her districtwide margin of 3,364 votes.