The presidential election of 1996 was a very multi-partisan election for Oklahoma, with more than eleven percent of the electorate voting for third-party candidates. This is one of the last presidential elections in Oklahoma in which the Southeastern portion of the state turned out in large numbers for the Democratic Party. This may be somewhat attributed to the influence of the politically volatile bordering state of Texas, which can also be seen changing political orientation throughout the 1980s and 1990s from a Democratic area to a largely Republican one, as well as its other neighbor Arkansas, Clinton's home state. In his second bid for the presidency, Ross Perot led the newly reformed Reform Party to gain over 10% of the votes in Oklahoma, and to pull in support nationally as the most popular third-party candidate to run for the U.S. presidency in recent times.
As of the 2024 presidential election[update], this remains the last time that a Democratic presidential candidate has carried any of Oklahoma's congressional districts (in this case, the 2nd and 3rd districts in the rural east), as well as the last election in which a Democratic presidential candidate carried the entirety of the Choctaw Nation, a majority of the Chickasaw, Cherokee and Creek Nations, or the counties containing the Seminole, Pawnee and Osage Nations.
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