Located in the geographical middle of the United States, Oklahoma has voted for the Republican presidential candidate since the 1950s. In the last 14 years, only one Democrat, the current governor, Brad Henry, has won a statewide race.

Rural/urban tensions used to divide the state by party, with Republicans centered in the more business-oriented cities and Democratic family traditions holding sway in the rural areas. However, in the last few years, Republicans have made inroads in the rural and suburbanizing town counties, "in no small part due to cultural issues that divide the national parties," says University of Oklahoma Political Science Professor Keith Gaddie.

Oklahomans are consistently conservative on social issues, and Democrats often run "I am more conservative than my opponent" campaigns. According to Wilson Research Strategies, 55 percent of Oklahomans are self-identified conservatives and only about 10 percent are self-proclaimed liberals. Oklahoma also has a strong populist tradition: in 1992, Ross Perot took 24 percent of the vote.

However, the 2002 governor's contest suggests that Democrats can win statewide races when Republicans line up against the rural position on issues of local culture. In that race, the presumptive governor-designate for the GOP, Steve Largent, was undone, in part, by a get-out-the-vote effort to oppose a cock-fighting ban. The ban won by a 2-1 margin in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, but energized rural voters in the southern part of the state who headed to the polls in record numbers to keep their traditional pastime intact. The ban passed, but political analysts say increased turnout in heavily Democratic areas helped elect Democrat Brad Henry by a 6,866 vote margin.

Largent also endorsed the Republican school consolidation plan, which threatened a key element of local identity in rural towns where Friday night is football night and sports heroes are treated like royalty.

Religion is the other key to understanding Oklahoman politics. A variety of pollsters find that as many as 70 percent of Oklahomans report attending church at least once a week. The influence of the churches cannot be underestimated, according Gaddie, who says the evangelical movement's get-out-the-vote effort have solidified GOP dominance in statewide elections since 1994.

The state's demographics vary from the more multi-cultural Republican populations in the eastern urban centers to the poorer, traditionally Democratic, sections in the south and the plains and rural communities of the west

Even its arguably most cosmopolitan city, Tulsa, which takes pride in its ethnic variety, skyscrapers and innovative business culture, remains socially and politically conservative. The area around Tulsa, known as Green Country because of its rolling hills and hundreds of man-made lakes, has become more suburban and popular with retirees. The corresponding rise in affluence has made those counties more Republican.

To the west, Oklahoma City took center stage in 1995 when Timothy McVeigh blew up the federal building, killing 168 people. The severity of the attack was unprecedented in American history and the nation watched as Oklahomans honored their dead and rebuilt their lives with the spiritual steadiness of the Great Plains.

The bombing was part of a dramatic cycle of despair and recovery that continues to this day.

Some of the first residents were the Five Civilized Tribes driven west from Georgia and Alabama by Andrew Jackson's forces in the 1830 Trail of Tears. The American Indians settled in the eastern part of the state, where today almost one in four people report their race as American Indian. Then came white settlers in a great land grab memorialized in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. After oil was discovered in 1897, speculators flocked to the state, creating the boom town of Tulsa.

Oklahoma became a state in 1907, and a prosperous culture of farmers, ranchers and oilmen flourished until the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, which sucked up the soil necessary for productive farming. Desperate farmers and migrant workers -- so-called Okies -- headed for California in search of greener pastures, a journey made famous by John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath."

Oil production created its own cycle of boom and bust, and the price spikes of 1973 and 1979 enriched the state, increasing the population from 2.5 million in 1970 to 3.3 million in 1983, according to the Almanac of American Politics. However, the collapse in oil prices ravaged the economy, with oil rigs dropping from 882 in 1982 to 232 in 1983. The 1990 Census reported 3.1 million people, a population drop that stirred the government to try to diversify the economy with tax breaks for any businesses located on current or "former" Indian reservation land -- nearly the entire state.

Due to the close proximity of settlers and Indians, many Oklahomans are proud of their mixed heritage, including a candidate in this year's race for the U.S. Senate. Oklahoma has the second-largest American Indian population after California, with 273,000, according to the 2000 Census. Assimilation and acceptance have incorporated native traditions in every day life, including the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole languages: many of the street signs in Tahlequah, once the Cherokee capital, are in Cherokee and English.

The southeastern section of the state, known as Little Dixie, was settled by white Southerners -- many of the counties are named after parts of Mississippi. Voters in Little Dixie are traditionally Democratic, but culturally conservative.

The western part of the state is home to farmers who battle scorching summer heat and freezing winter cold. The residents are divided politically north from south, with Republican families coming into the northern part of the state from Kansas and more traditionally Democratic families coming into the southern sections from Texas. While the mostly white population in the west has been diminishing, there has been an increasing number of Hispanics arriving to work in hog farms and meatpacking plants.