An Oklahoma council member with ties to white nationalists faces scrutiny, and a recall election

ENID, Okla. (AP) — The typical topics for discussion among city leaders in the northwest Oklahoma community of Enid are how to lure a new movie theater, the cost of operating a downtown arena and plans for a solar farm on the edge of town.

But the issue looming large over this community of just over 50,000 residents in the heart of the state’s wheat plains is whether to remove a city councilor with ties to white supremacist groups.

Judd Blevins, 42, an Iraq War veteran who attended the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlotesville, Virginia, is facing a recall election on Tuesday, when voters in one of the city’s wards are set to decide whether to keep him in office or opt instead for his opponent, Cheryl Patterson, a grandmother and longtime youth leader at an area church. Although both Blevins and Patterson are Republicans, the race is nonpartisan and open to all registered voters in the ward.

Even though the number of white nationalist groups in the United States stabilized at a little more than 100 chapters in 2022 after reaching a historic high of 155 in 2019, experts who monitor hate-group activity at the Southern Poverty Law Center say the movement has been given legitimacy within the political mainstream. They cite the attendance of U.S. Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Paul Gosar of Arizona at an event in 2022 organized by a white nationalist as an example.

The recall effort in Oklahoma was launched by two longtime Enid residents, best friends Connie Vickers and Nancy Presnall, both Democrats in a county where Republicans have a nearly 4-to-1 advantage in voter registration. The two helped spearhead a signature drive to qualify Blevins’ recall for the ballot, getting 350 signatures from voters in the