In its early years, Oklahoma was a “Solid South” Democratic state whose founding fathers like "Alfalfa Bill" Murray and Charles N. Haskell had disfranchised most of its black population via literacy tests and grandfather clauses,[1] the latter of which would be declared unconstitutional in Guinn v. United States.

However, despite being less stridently isolationist than states further north in the Great Plains,[4] Oklahoma was nonetheless caught up in the hostility towards President Wilson and his various foreign policy proposals, as well as his inability to deal with large-scale domestic conflict.

[5] In early polls this was thought insufficient to split the state from the “Solid South”, but as it turned out a large swing caused the Democrats to lose the state, alongside Tennessee, for the first break in the “Solid South” since Reconstruction.

The Republicans also elected a Senator and five Congressmen, so strong was the hostility towards Wilson.

Harding won the state by a margin of 5.5 percentage points.