Oklahoma’s political climate is a restive one these days: The outgoing Republican governor is among the nation’s least popular governors, and a slide in oil prices is battering the state. Read more

So although President Trump won 65 percent of the vote in Oklahoma two years ago, the race to replace Gov. Mary Fallin is closer than might ordinarily be expected. The Democratic candidate, Drew Edmondson, a former state attorney general whose father was a 10-term congressman, has one of the best-known surnames in Oklahoma politics, and polls had him running close behind the Republican nominee, Kevin Stitt, a Tulsa businessman.

Mr. Stitt, who campaigned as a “conservative outsider,” founded a mortgage company and is a newcomer to politics.