Longtime House Republican faces pricey primary full of fighting words — and football

Rep. Tom Cole is the latest House Republican on defense this year, facing a primary challenger from the right in Oklahoma as GOP incumbents across the country have seen their margins of victory shrink in recent years.

It's the most competitive primary Cole has faced since he was first elected in 2002, and it’s been a bitter contest — almost as bitter as the storied rivalry between the University of Oklahoma Sooners and the University of Texas Longhorns, which has become a subplot in the race.

Cole’s allies have leaned into that sports rivalry to make sure Cole doesn’t fumble ahead of Tuesday’s primary. The congressman’s chief primary opponent, businessman Paul Bondar, has spent more than $5.1 million of his own money on the race.

But Bondar has faced a potentially damning accusation in Sooner country: that he’s actually a Texan.

“It’s not good to move into a place to run for Congress when you’ve never lived in it, but if you’re coming from Texas into Oklahoma, that probably adds an extra dimension,” Cole, a lifelong Oklahoman and member of the Chickasaw Nation, told NBC News onThursday.

Americans 4 Security PAC, a super PAC backing Cole, recently launched a TV ad accusing Bondar of being “straight from Dallas trying to buy an Oklahoma congressional seat.”

“Bondar’s full of Texas bull,” a narrator later adds. “Don’t let a Longhorn try to take our Sooner seat.”

Bondar tried to tackle the issue with his own TV ad this week, saying: “I’ve played a lot of football in my life and I love the Sooners. But this election, it’s not about football. We’ve all seen what Tom Cole can do in the last 22 years. Tom Cole wants to cut your Social Security benefits. He wants to increase the retirement age, cut your benefits if you have