Big investment, no return

 The trial bar in Oklahoma didn’t exactly get much bang for its considerable bucks in Tuesday’s election. Lawyers spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on races that were considered crucial to their goal of putting Democrats back in control of the Senate – forever the graveyard for lawsuit reform legislation. In each case, Democrats lost badly. Exhibit A was in Tulsa, where incumbent Nancy Riley won just 37 percent of the vote in her race against Republican Dan Newberry. Riley had switched parties two years ago, and that allowed Democrats to hold a 24-24 tie with Republicans. In Lawton, the trial bar went all in for challenger Keith Erwin but incumbent Republican Don Barrington won with 56 percent. Another favorite of attorneys, Bob Murphy, picked up just 42 percent of the vote against Republican James Halligan for the Stillwater-area seat held by term-limited Sen. Mike Morgan. And Diane Drum, who since mid-August had received nearly 90 percent of her campaign funds from lawyers, was drubbed by incumbent Jonathan Nichols in Norman. Nichols won with 61 percent.

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