Robert Franklin, a 66-year-old Sand Springs educator with 44 years in Oklahoma public schools, won the Republican nomination for state superintendent on Aug. 25, defeating James Taylor by more than 27,000 votes in the GOP runoff.

Franklin took 55% to Taylor's 45%, according to unofficial state election board results reported by the Tulsa Flyer.

The Nov. 3 general election will pit Franklin against Democrat Jennettie Marshall, a former Tulsa Public Schools board member who served eight years on the district's board. The winner will oversee an agency responsible for nearly 700,000 public school students statewide.

Both nominees have deep Tulsa-area roots. Franklin spent more than 15 years as an associate superintendent at Tulsa Technology Center and currently lectures doctoral and master's students at OU-Tulsa. He is an Oklahoma Educators Hall of Famer. Before Tulsa Tech, he spent 29 years at Sand Springs Public Schools, starting as a special education teacher and rising to assistant superintendent.

His campaign earned endorsements from more than 200 current and former superintendents statewide, including Union Public Schools Superintendent John Federline and two retired Broken Arrow superintendents.

"Teachers have always done hard things," Franklin said while holding his wife's hand at his Tulsa watch party Tuesday night, where the crowd was on its feet by 8:30 p.m. and Franklin was wiping away tears. "And if you're — parents, moms and dads — if you give us the best that you've got, which I pray that you are, then we're going to give you the best that we have."

This is his first run for elected office.

Taylor, a history and government teacher at Little Axe High School and pastor from Oklahoma City, had the Oklahoma GOP's formal endorsement but was significantly outspent. Franklin's campaign raised $128,446.60 from individuals and political action committees between June and August, according to his latest filing, while Taylor raised $42,462 from individual donors in the same period.

Franklin has pledged to bring a "breath of calm" to the superintendent's office, currently held by interim Lindel Fields, and to revise the Oklahoma State Testing Program. He changed his party registration from Democrat to Republican in 2023.

Marshall has said her priorities include restoring accountability at the State Department of Education, teacher recruiting and retention, and addressing special education deficiencies, according to News9.

The general election is Nov. 3. Oklahoma ranks between 48th and 50th nationally in public education, depending on the measure.