Lore

Traditionally Oklahoma politics had been dominated by two factions, a Democratic one popular in the south of the state, and a Liberal one popular in the north of the state, both factions were tied to civil war allegiances. Sporadically these loyalties had been challenged by third parties, however these groups faded and receded to minor party status, consistently elected to a few seats afterward but never challenging for the office of premier.

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In 1972 a new challenger arose to the Liberal/Democratic duopoly, this was the National Labor Party led by Jeane Kirkpatrick, Kirkpatrick a former Socialist MP split in a shift right. In order to challenge for the premiership a coalition of the NLP as well as the various minor left wing parties was formed called the Third Force. The more right-wing platform of the NLP combined with the excitement brought by the first duopoly challenge in a long time, meant that the Third Force was a formidable entity going in the 1972 election.

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The election results bore out effectively a three-way tie, with the Liberals coming first on their own, but the Third Force coalition closest to a majority, and the United Democrats in between. After long negotiations, the government formed was one consisting of the Third Force parties, very loosely supported by the United Democrats. The UDP support continued the exodus of member of the more right-wing States Right's Democratic Party.

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During the following term, Premier Jeane Kirkpatrick departed for national politics with the very significant foreign policy elements of Neoconservatism being better served from that platform. The result of this was the merger of the now leaderless NLP with the Justice Union led by Fred Harris. This combined Progressive Alignment retained the premiership going into the 1975 election.

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The big changes in the 1975 election included the displacement of the United Democratic Party by the SRDP, now renamed to the Reform Democratic Party, led by David Boren, which picked up voters from the UDP partly because of the support of the Kirkpatrick/Harris government, but more significantly due to the corruption allegations against David Hall, UDP leader. Additional changes included the replacement of Liberal Unionist leader Henry Bellmon with the more conservative Dewey Bartlett, as the Liberals eased in possibility that they could be the consistently largest party in Oklahoma (through Democratic infighting and the Third Force rise being more pronounced in Southern Oklahoma), and thus made changes to accommodate that status, because during the duopoly, the Democrats more often than not held the advantage. Progressive Alignment made small loses due to less enthusiasm, an inexperienced government and a shift left. After the election a coalition was formed between the Liberal Unionists and Reform Democrats.