Oklahoma in 2008

[HAnnA MArin County]

George W. Bush swept every county in Oklahoma in 2004 before John McCain accomplished the same feat in 2008. It's been discussed on here before, but Oklahoma is located in the heart of the Bible Belt with evangelicals who were not very responsive to Obama's socially liberal stances, particularly on abortion and marriage equality. Here's something from a source that may better answer your question:

While Oklahoma is certainly a conservative state, it’s not necessarily the state you would think would be the most opposed to Obama in the U.S.. In fact, in the most recent Gallup state rankings, Oklahoma wasn’t even listed among the 10 most conservative states in the country.

The state also recently had a popular two-term Democratic governor, Brad Henry, and has a popular Democratic congressman, retiring Rep. Dan Boren (the son of a well-liked Democratic former governor and senator).

GOP consultant and Oklahoma native Chris Wilson says it comes down to values.

“Be it health care, the Keystone Pipeline, religious liberty or any other myriad of issues, Obama continues to prove his values are even outside the mainstream of the Democratic Party in Oklahoma,” Wilson said.. “However, if Obama is able to successfully push for a college football playoff, that could all change.”

Read more at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/why-oklahoma-is-so-anti-obama/2012/03/07/gIQA4z6UxR_blog.html

[HAnnA MArin County]

I agree with the poster who said he considers Oklahoma to be Southern. This may be the reason why Oklahoma has become so solidly Republican in recent years. True, most people there are still registered Democrats, but that doesn't really mean anything in today's ever-increasingly polarizing political environment. Just because you register with one party doesn't mean you have to always support that party's candidates. I would ultimately argue that Oklahoma is more conservative than it is Republican, but as a previous poster mentioned, now that the parties are becoming so ideologically polarized, it only makes sense for Oklahoma to vote Republican.

I think in addition to values that it has to do with geography and the urban/rural divide. As the Republicans become the one-party dominant majority in the South (the antithesis to New England and the Northeast), Oklahoma will follow that lead. I would argue that the state has much more in common with Arkansas than it does with Kansas. Social conservatism and the Bible issues may be the reason, and it's been argued on here that Kansas isn't as full of religious fundamentalists as Oklahoma (despite the fact that Topeka is the home of the notorious anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church cult and Wichita was where Dr. George Tiller was murdered by an anti-abortion extremist). I would attribute Kansas's large swing to Obama in 2008 to his connections with the state: his mother was born there and the then-Governor Kathleen Sebelius was very popular in the state and came out as an early supporter of his in 2008. Since Obama had no connections to Oklahoma (I believe the then-Governor Brad Henry remained neutral) and that the state is more akin to Arkansas, IMO, it followed Arkansas's voting habits. To further illustrate Oklahoma's conservatism, recall that the withdrawn candidate John Edwards still received ~10 percent of the vote in the Oklahoma Democratic Primary in 2008.

Oklahoma is also different in terms of the urban votes. The counties that contain Oklahoma City and Tulsa are quite Republican, whereas Kansas City, Kansas (Wyandotte County) and Lawrence (Douglas County, home to Kansas University) are reliably Democratic. Going farther north up the Great Plains in 2008, you'll see that Obama was able to win Omaha (Douglas County) and Lincoln (Lancaster County) in Nebraska, Sioux Falls (Minnehaha County) in South Dakota, and even Fargo (Cass County) and Grand Forks in North Dakota. He also carried all the major urban cities/counties in Texas: Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso, etc. So Oklahoma is unique in that regard. IIRC, Obama's "best" county was Cherokee, which he "only" lost by about 12 points, in Little Dixie. The Census reports that the county is 1/3 Native American, so that may be the reason.