Narrowly voted into office, Enid residents fought to recall Judd Blevins.
Narrowly winning a city council election in February 2023, Judd Blevins became a city council member for Enid, Oklahoma. The city of around 50,000 residents elected him by a mere 36 vote difference. Blevins, a US veteran of Iraq and owner of a roofing company in Enid, ran on conservative values such as tighter immigration. He was supported by the current Oklahoma State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters. Residents of Enid quickly noted his unique ideals.
One group of concerned residents, Connie Vickers and Nancy Presnall, found a photo of Blevins carrying a tiki torch and walking with other like-minded individuals down the streets of the University of Virginia campus. Blevins was in attendance and supported the “Unite the Right” rally that was held that weekend, in which white supremacists gathered in Charlottesville to protest the removal of Confederate statues.
As reported in an NBC article on Blevins, Vickers and Presnall attempted to confront Blevins at one of the debate nights held before the upcoming city council elections. They went as far as printing a large picture of him at the rally and asking him about his ties to white nationalism after he finished speaking. When Blevins declined to speak with them, Presnall is quoted as saying, “He ran away from two little old ladies.”
The following Valentine’s Day, Blevins was voted into office, but that did not sit right for many residents of the city of Enid, who vowed to remove him from office. In further investigations by NBC, Blevins was found to be an active leader from 2017 to 2019 in one of the largest white nationalist groups at the time called Identity Evropa. When news of Blevins reached the wider public of Enid, campaigning started to force a recall. In Enid, City Council members have to serve for 6 months before voting can begin, but it took a whole year for enough signatures to be collected. The group behind the campaigning, the Enid Social Justice Committee even stated that they would forgo the recall if Blevins would just renounce his white nationalistic views and apologize, but he denied the opportunity.
On Tuesday, all four districts in Enid’s Ward 1 voted to recall Blevins, according to results on the Oklahoma Election Board website. The position will now be filled by Cheryl Patterson, who has been a longtime community contributor in both her church and family, as reported by AP. Patterson defeated Blevins with over 59% of the vote.
In an interview with Enid News, Patterson stated she was “exhausted and ecstatic” from the outcome of the recall election. She furthered her statement by hoping to help Enid “get back to normalcy.” Patterson was quoted by NBC when she said “Enid is not a town that promotes white nationalism or white supremacy in any way, and the people are good.”
Blevins also had comments about the race. Enid News received a statement where he said, “It took a coalition of leftists and moderates, an all out media blitz from local, state, and national outlets, and scare tactics about the future of Vance [Air Force Base], unfounded in any truth or reality, yet shamefully endorsed by the establishment, to remove a true conservative from office. So be it.” His final comments to the room were, “I have fought the good fight.”
While the news of his recall has become national, Enid residents celebrate the victory on social media.
