Mary Fallin, American businesswoman and politician, 27th Governor of Oklahoma
Mary Fallin (; née Copeland; born December 9, 1954) is an American politician who served as the 27th governor of Oklahoma from 2011 to 2019. A member of the Republican Party, she was elected in 2010 and reelected in 2014. She was the first and so far only woman to be elected governor of Oklahoma. She was the first Oklahoma congresswoman since Alice Mary Robertson in 1920.
Beginning a career in politics, Fallin was elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives in 1990. She served two terms in the Oklahoma House, representing a district in Oklahoma City, from 1990 to 1995. In 1994, Fallin was elected to serve as the 14th Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma; being elected to a total of three terms, she served under two different governors from 1995 to 2007. After seven-term Republican incumbent Ernest Istook announced that he would retire from his seat to run for governor, Fallin declared her candidacy for Oklahoma's 5th congressional district, where she was elected to two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, serving from 2007 to 2011. Fallin became the first woman elected to Congress from Oklahoma since 1920, when Alice Mary Robertson became Oklahoma's first (and the nation's second) woman to be elected to Congress.
Fallin ran for Governor of Oklahoma in 2010. She defeated three other opponents with 54% of the vote in the Republican primary, and defeated the Democratic nominee, Lieutenant Governor Jari Askins, with 60% of the vote in the general election. She won reelection in 2014, defeating Oklahoma state representative Joe Dorman. Fallin's tenure as governor was a contentious one, plagued by numerous controversies, charges of hypocrisy and accusations of overreach. An October 2018 poll by Morning Consult found Fallin with a 17% approval and 75% disapproval rating, making her the most unpopular governor in the country. Term limits barred Fallin from seeking a third term to the governorship that year; Kevin Stitt was elected to succeed her.