Voters in Enid, Oklahoma, ousted a City Council member after a group of residents launched a monthslong effort to inform voters about his ties to white nationalist groups.
After Judd Blevins won his February 2023 race for Enid City Council by a mere 36 votes in an election with low turnout, a group of local activists quickly formed a committee to recall him. On Tuesday, he was ousted from his City Council seat in a decisive vote.
The activists highlighted Blevins’ participation in the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017 and his past leadership of a local chapter of Identity Evropa, an alt-right movement that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated a hate group. As NBC News reported, the effort led to months of efforts bringing together a diverse group of activists.
Members of the Enid Social Justice Committee had agreed to forgo a recall election if Blevins admitted to his history with white nationalist groups and renounced them. But Blevins declined to do so, at least in public. He denied that he was a white supremacist, but days before the recall vote said at a community forum that his involvement with Unite the Right and Identity Evropa was to bring attention to “the same issues that got Donald Trump elected in 2016,” including “securing America’s borders” and fighting “anti-white hatred.” Blevins lost his recall election on Tuesday to Cheryl Patterson, also a Republican. Afterward, he blamed his defeat on what he suggested was an orchestrated campaign by “leftists and moderates,” as well as local, state and national media.
Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.
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