OKLAHOMA CITY — Gov. Kevin Stitt and President Donald Trump are now backing the same Republican candidate for governor, despite a very public feud just a few months ago.
The conflict erupted in February after Stitt, then chairman of the National Governors Association, told fellow governors the White House planned to limit invitations to an annual governors meeting to Republicans. The White House later expanded the invitation list, and Trump blamed Stitt for what he called a misunderstanding.
Trump responded with three sharply worded Truth Social posts over two days.
In the first, he called Stitt “the RINO Governor of the Great State of Oklahoma” and said the governor had “incorrectly stated my position” on the White House gathering.
Later that day, Trump escalated the rhetoric, calling Stitt “very mediocre (at best!),” claiming he had rescued Stitt’s 2022 reelection campaign with his endorsement and adding, “Sorry, my cherished Oklahoma, to have done that to you!”
The following day, Trump again criticized the governor, writing that Oklahoma would “soon have a Governor … who knows how to accurately write a Press Release,” while referring to Stitt as “a wiseguy.”
Despite those attacks, Trump endorsed Mike Mazzei before Oklahoma’s June Republican primary, and Stitt endorsed the same candidate after the race advanced to an Aug. 25 runoff.
The result is an unusual political alliance: a term-limited governor campaigning for the candidate already backed by a president who only months earlier had publicly labeled him a “RINO” and questioned his leadership.
