Leisa Mitchell Haynes
A Republican who is running for governor in 2026 made a swing through McCurtain County this week.
Leisa Mitchell Haynes said she is not a career politician, and that’s why she is getting an early start.
She has a bachelor’s degree in communications and a master’s degree in public administration, has served as both a Main Street Program manager and a city manager, and religion is very important to her priorities.
She wants to return prayer to schools and Bibles in each public school library, for instance, and says if she’s elected, no cross dressers, sex acts or witches would be tolerated in any common school or university, and such people would lose their jobs there.
She vows to remove from office any corrupt D.A., judge or other elected official.
She says she has successfully recruited businesses to Oklahoma and would do that statewide if elected. She sees Indian tribes as an asset to Oklahoma and would treat them as such.
Her early years were punctuated with interest in government.
“In second grade, I started reading the newspaper to tell my parents what was going on, and they said, ‘Who are you and where did you come from?’ I read that President Nixon was coming to Stillwater to address the graduates.
“Here I am in third grade,” she said, displaying a newspaper story of her at the time showing the letter that President Nixon had sent her.
“I invited him to diner at my house, because my mom was a good cook, and he said due to scheduling conflicts he couldn’t, but he and his wife loved to get together with voters, and he’d call me next time he was in town…
“The next year he came back, and I was scared to death he was going to call me, because Watergate had started, and I was embarrassed my president had been involved in something like that. Now I know he was probably set up.
“But God told me in third grade that I would be a governor, so everything I did for the next 20 years was to meet that goal.”
She became the Main Street manger in Shawnee, and intended to run for state senator, but she loved the job and everyone knew her, so she changed her mind.
She worked for the Oklahoma Department of Commerce and travelled all over the state, training communities in how to revitalize their commercial districts.
That’s when she decided to get her Master’s in Public Administration, then became city manager in Mangum, Tuttle and in New Mexico. During the pandemic she lost her job and moved back to Oklahoma.
People began to ask her to run for governor, she said. “God renewed this dream 30 years later.”
Why governor?
“I’m going to help these cities and counties fix the streets that are neglected because they probably ran out of money.
“I’m going to look at the tax code and make it fair for small businesses, cities and counties and individuals.”
She said, “God sent an angel to me last August, and she said, ‘Now is the time. Write your plan and get ready. Now is the time.
“I got in the car and said, ‘Lord, you know politics are very scary right now. They come after your friends, your family and your businesses.”
She said she’s had several more messages from God since August to let her know she’s on the right track.
“I am anointed.
“We need a leader who’s not a career politician who talks out of both sides of their mouth. I have learned so much since I’ve been running about things that need to be done here. Why haven’t they been done? Do we elect spineless people who take the money and not do a thing for the people? That amazes me, but that’s what has been done, I guess.”
Among her other policy positions:
- Fencing on all overpasses.
- Convicted sex traffickers or kidnappers will be put to death.
- Oklahoma is 48th in education, and she would start a program to send teachers to the most successful state to learn firsthand why that state is most effective.
- A leadership program for seniors in high school.
- Support a vote on term limits for Congress and U.S. Senate.
- Prisoners learn to train service dogs and to learn agriculture.
- No benefits for illegal immigrants.
- No males in female sports.
- No sanctuary cities, counties or state.
- Restrooms for what a person’s birth certificate says.
- Second amendment protections.
Haynes said she will be attending the grand opening of the Choctaw Landing Casino on May 23.
