Holt elected president of U.S. Conference of Mayors

[Pete]

Press release from the City:

************

Mayor David Holt elected 2025-2026 president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors
06/05/2023

Today at the Annual Meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors in Columbus, the membership elected Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt to serve as the 2025-2026 President of the organization.

In the near term, Mayor Holt assumes office immediately as the organization’s Second Vice President. In 2024, Holt will become First Vice President. At the Annual Meeting in the summer of 2025, Mayor Holt will become the 83rd President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

“I am incredibly grateful and excited for the honor of serving in these roles,” said Mayor Holt. “Mayors are the most visionary, effective and unifying leaders in our country right now, and the opportunity to represent them is an opportunity I am very grateful to have. I thank my fellow mayors for their belief in me. This also presents an opportunity to tell Oklahoma City’s story, and it’s a reminder to Oklahoma City that we have an incredible platform as America’s 20th-largest city.”

A member of the Osage Nation, Mayor Holt will be the first Native American President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. During their year in office, the President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors speaks for the nation’s mayors and their cities. Some of the most notable names in United States mayoral history have held the position, from LaGuardia to Daley to Landrieu. Holt is the second Mayor of Oklahoma City to hold the position, joining Mick Cornett, who served as President from 2016 to 2017.

Mayor Holt was elected to the Advisory Board of the Conference in 2019 and was elected a Trustee in 2020. In 2021, he served as national co-chair of mayoral efforts to pass the Bipartisan Instructure Law. He serves as Vice Chair of the International Affairs Committee, Co-Chair of the Task Force on Electric Vehicles, is a member of the Finance & Audit Committee, and has served as Chair of the Nominating Committee and as a member of the Site Selection Committee.

Holt was elected as Mayor of Oklahoma City in 2018 with 78.5 percent of the vote and was re-elected in 2022 by a 40-point margin and with the most votes for any mayoral candidate since 1959. When he took office, Holt was the youngest Mayor of Oklahoma City since 1923, and he will be one of the youngest U.S. Conference of Mayors Presidents in history.

In his professional life, Holt is the Dean-Designate of the Oklahoma City University School of Law. Mayor Holt is a graduate of The George Washington University and Oklahoma City University. Mayor Holt is married to Rachel, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Office of Juvenile Affairs. They have two children, George and Margaret.

Oklahoma City has a population of 694,800 and is the 20th-largest city in the United States.

[Lafferty Daniel]

Really sucks he's not going to run for governor. He's exactly what this state (and country) need.

[chssooner]

Really sucks he's not going to run for governor. He's exactly what this state (and country) need.

He still could. But, he also could see doing a lot of good in teaching up quality lawyers, which could also help the state a lot.

[Pete]

Holt will definitely be pursuing higher political office when the time and opportunity are right.

He's very savvy and isn't drawn into the constant and ridiculous culture wars.

[scottk]

Really sucks he's not going to run for governor. He's exactly what this state (and country) need.

Former OKC Mayor Mick Cornett tried a few years back, and did well in the primary, beat Kevin Stitt by over 20,000 votes, however, Stitt did much better in the runoff and beat Cornett by about 10 percent overall. Stitt at the time was mostly unknown.

I think if David Holt ran for OK HD5, he could carry it, but for an office like Governor, he would have to have favorability and party support outside of OKC.

[Pete]

I believe Holt has a much broader appeal than Cornett.

[BoulderSooner]

Really sucks he's not going to run for governor. He's exactly what this state (and country) need.

he will have a very very hard time ever winning a state wide republican primary

[Plutonic Panda]

he will have a very very hard time ever winning a state wide republican primary

Unfortunately given how far right Oklahoma is you are probably right.

[Jake]

The rurals wouldn’t vote for Holt.

[Plutonic Panda]

The rurals wouldn’t vote for Holt.

Honestly that wouldn’t be as much of an issue if the city people would get off their asses and vote but they won’t. We’ll continue to have pathetic voter turnout.

[April in the Plaza]

he will have a very very hard time ever winning a state wide republican primary

Yeah, i like the guy (for the most part) but he is more likely to win the Presidency than a state wide republican primary.

[dankrutka]

Honestly that wouldn’t be as much of an issue if the city people would get off their asses and vote but they won’t. We’ll continue to have pathetic voter turnout.

This doesn’t even make sense. There’s nothing to suggest more voters would help him win rural areas.

[Laramie]

Holt would be just the man to unite all of Oklahoma.

[Plutonic Panda]

This doesn’t even make sense. There’s nothing to suggest more voters would help him win rural areas.

I’m not understanding what you’re saying. Rural voters don’t have an impact?

[dankrutka]

I’m not understanding what you’re saying. Rural voters don’t have an impact?

Forgive me. I misread your post. I guess I’d ask, how different are urban and rural turnout rates?

[Plutonic Panda]

Forgive me. I misread your post. I guess I’d ask, how different are urban and rural turnout rates?

What I was trying to say was that the system in Oklahoma is skewed to favor rural voters but if enough urban voters came out and voted there could be real change. I don’t have the stats on hand but last I checked voter turnout was comical and even the urban areas had poor voter turnout.

[djohn]

Holt would be just the man to unite all of Oklahoma.

Agreed! I consider myself much more conservative than him, but he seems to be a good mix - more in the middle (leaning right, lol)

[Pete]

Regarding state-wide elections, Holt would face the same challenge as Cornett: He's viewed as an OKC guy and that could turn off many voters in Tulsa.

[chssooner]

Honestly, if Cornett hadn't resorted to his "Bull-Stitt" campaign, he very likely would have won the GOP runoff. But he went low, and the rural uber-Christians didn't like it, and made the difference.

[GoGators]

Holt will definitely be pursuing higher political office when the time and opportunity are right.

He's very savvy and isn't drawn into the constant and ridiculous culture wars.

This is exactly why it would be almost impossible for Holt to win a statewide republican primary. It is an unfortunate situation.

[Pete]

This is exactly why it would be almost impossible for Holt to win a statewide republican primary. It is an unfortunate situation.

Sad, but true.

[David]

This is exactly why it would be almost impossible for Holt to win a statewide republican primary. It is an unfortunate situation.

Which is why he is better off parking himself in the OKC Mayor's office for a while longer and in his new Dean position and waiting to see if the weather changes.

[soonerguru]

This doesn’t even make sense. There’s nothing to suggest more voters would help him win rural areas.

Dan, I believe the point he is making is if more urban voters would turn out, it could overcome the rural voters. I thought this may happen in the last gubernatorial election, but Joy did about the same as Drew did. The turnout wasn't there, particularly in Tulsa County. One would think she would have fared better in her home county but Tulsa is not as purple or blue as OKC at this point for whatever reason.

We are the opposite of a Yellow Dog state at this point. The R will win statewide no matter what. Only an intense and focused voter registration drive over several years (and possibly election cycles) will make this a competitive state.

My theory is that it's generally bad to have one-party control of a state, no matter which party. It encourages insularity and really bad laws, such as the "save oil and gas" banking law in Oklahoma that prevents municipalities from using the banks that give them the most competitive interest rate. That's not sound economics and it's not conservative -- it's reactionary. One can probably find similarly dumb laws in extremely blue states.

David Holt cannot win a Republican statewide primary in this climate. Were he to switch parties, he could easily win the Democratic primary but then would have to face rural voters who only choose one capital letter when they are in the voting booth, regardless of the issues at hand or the candidates in the race.

Joy worked the hardest I've seen a Democrat work to sway rural voters in many years. The bulk of her campaign was spent doing that. There's no such thing as a perfect campaign but she didn't lose because she did the wrong things. She just lost because of partisan identification being such a driver. It's not that that's new, it's just even more hardened than ever before. Also, regarding voter registration, a campaign smartly targeting rural voters who might tend to be less partisan R may be effective in somewhat eating into this total red wall, but it would take a lot of money and seasoned professional operators to pull off. That's too much for any single candidate in any race to take on themselves.

[soonerguru]

RE: the thread subject. Holt is such an incredible representative of OKC on the national stage -- moreso than even Mick Cornett. Whenever he is interviewed he is always so bright and always seems to know how to center the conversation around OKC, the friendliness and pragmatism of our people, and the momentum our city has. He is one of few elected Oklahoma figures that doesn't say something absolutely cringeworthy or barbaric on the national stage. It is a refreshing change.

He will be a great president of the US Conference, and, as such, will probably put OKC in position to host that terrific event in 2025. I had the good fortune of attending some events when OKC last hosted (was it 2011? 2012? 2009?; I can't remember) and it was a stellar event. OKC is so much cooler now than it was then.

Holt also just gets the policy positions that are important to American cities, and he is correct that civic government is the primary driver of positive change in the US because it is generally more civil and far less dysfunctional by design.

[BG918]

Honestly, if Cornett hadn't resorted to his "Bull-Stitt" campaign, he very likely would have won the GOP runoff. But he went low, and the rural uber-Christians didn't like it, and made the difference.

All time dumbest move by a politician. Whoever signed off on that should never work in politics again. One idiotic decision changed the course of Oklahoma politics for a generation