Anthony Devore, a homegrown conservative outsider, is running for Oklahoma House District 19 on a platform of property rights, rural support, and practical education reform.
Anthony Devore is a local conservative running to represent Oklahoma House District 19 in the state legislature. He positions himself as an outsider who wants common sense and local control back in state government, not another career politician from the capital. His message focuses on protecting property owners and restoring opportunities in rural communities.
District 19 covers parts of Atoka, Bryan, Choctaw, and Pushmataha counties, a patchwork of small towns, farms, and family-run businesses. These communities are under real pressure from economic strain, shrinking opportunity, and forces reshaping land use. In some counties poverty rates have hovered at about 17 to 20 percent — well above the state average — which feeds into a sense that state policy is out of touch with rural life.
Devore was born and raised in the district and talks about bringing practical experience to the job. He told Townhall he is running as “somebody with backbone and grit that will stand up for [his constituents].” That direct, no-nonsense tone is a throughline in his campaign speeches and interviews.
He brings decades of work in education and private enterprise to the race, including more than ten years owning a residential solar energy company. “To get the totality of why I liked getting into the residential solar, we have to understand my previous 10 years of experience in education, working with student funding and grants,” he said. Devore says that background taught him how incentives and rules can help families or leave them paying more.
Devore points out that federal incentives tied to residential solar made it feasible for many homeowners to invest, and he uses that experience to explain how policy can move markets. He warns that poorly designed incentive structures and heavy-handed regulation can “jack up” utility bills and hurt working families. He argues for smarter, simpler policy that rewards independence without picking winners by politics.
Property rights are a central plank of Devore’s campaign, especially concerns over eminent domain in rural counties. He warns that state-backed projects are encroaching on the “veil of private property ownership” that has long defined rural Oklahoma. Farmers and landowners are watching as roadblocks to development become threats to ownership itself.
On eminent domain he is blunt and exact: “There’s a movement here now about eminent domain as far as windmills and solar farms and AI data centers,” he said. “At what point does eminent domain stop? Where do you draw the line on that?” DeVore argued that seizing land in these cases “is not constitutional,” insisting “there has to be a limit on a higher purpose to declare eminent domain,” particularly when the projects in question will be “government subsidized in some form or fashion.”
Voters in the district, he says, want to keep control of their own land and livelihoods. Devore said voters in the district “don’t want somebody else telling us what we can and can’t do with our property or what property we can own and what property we can’t own.” That worry feeds into broader distrust of distant decision-makers who favor big, subsidized projects over family farms.
He criticizes state leaders who offer only “lip service” to farmers and rural entrepreneurs while policy ends up favoring larger, better-connected players. Small producers, he says, are repeatedly squeezed by programs and mandates that tilt toward scale and influence. Devore wants policy that levels the field for local owners, not more rules that reward insiders.
Education is another major concern. Devore slammed a measure debated at the state Capitol that would “take away the minimum base salary for teachers,” warning that action would be “horrible for especially our rural schools.” He points to the real cost of teacher turnover and the need to avoid filing exemptions “for two and three years in a row for unqualified teachers just so they can babysit classrooms.”
He frames student rights and school choice in plain terms, arguing Oklahoma gives kids an “opportunity to an education” rather than “an absolute right to an education.” He contrasts that with Texas, which recently passed a school choice law mandating “alternative education programs” and creating a voucher system to give parents more options. Devore wants vocational and trade classes restored so students who are “not going to go to a four-year university” are not “left behind.”
Across his platform Devore emphasizes local control and pushing power back to everyday Oklahomans. In a country where special interests dominate Devore seeks to return more power to everyday Americans. “I don’t have a special interest that I’m supporting, and I’m not a career politician,” he said.
