By Ernest Scheyder
Aug 7 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump's push to build the Western Hemisphere's largest aluminum smelter in rural Oklahoma has divided the state's Republican voters and emerged as a key issue in the contentious race to be the next governor.
The two Republicans who will face off for their party's nomination on August 25 have taken opposing views, underscoring the willingness of some conservatives to buck Trump and use industrial projects as campaign leverage.
"I'm not going
to let it be built," Gentner Drummond, the state's attorney general, said at a candidate forum last month with his opponent, former state Senator Mike Mazzei. "We have to protect farmland."
The $4 billion smelter project would be the first in the U.S. since 1980, but it has attracted some opposition from the community where it is slated to be built.
It became a major campaign issue in May after Trump endorsed Mazzei for the June 16 gubernatorial primary. Mazzei had opposed the smelter until the day Trump endorsed him.
Drummond filed a lawsuit from the attorney general's office days later to block Emirates Global Aluminium and Century Aluminum from building the smelter, a move opponents characterized as an attempt to use the project as a campaign wedge.
The strategy worked. Neither candidate garnered 50% of the first-round vote, forcing an August 25 runoff. The winner is likely to win the November general election in the deeply Republican state, where nearly two-thirds of voters supported Trump in each of the past three presidential elections and where a Democrat has not won the governor's mansion in 20 years.
Of the two runoff polls conducted, one shows Drummond leading and the other Mazzei leading.
"Politics certainly is behind Drummond's move," said Seth McKee, political science professor at Oklahoma State University. "If he frames it right, he could win the governor's race on this issue."
TRUMP'S PUSH FOR MORE ALUMINUM
The proposed smelter is slated for Inola — about 30 miles (48 km) east of Tulsa, the state's second-largest city, and would produce 750,000 metric tons per year of aluminum.
Rising aluminum demand and Trump's 50% tariff on the metal have helped spark a resurgence inside the U.S.
The project, which received a $500 million U.S. Energy Department grant, is central to Trump's plans to boost America's minerals production. Roughly half of the aluminum used in the U.S. is imported, much of it from Canada.
Magnitude 7 Metals, for example, is reopening a 1970s-era smelter in Missouri after closing it in 2024. That smelter, though, was ranked the worst polluter in the country in 2019.
Trump said on his Truth Social platform in June that Drummond "wants to dethrone" a project that would be one of the best-ever conceived "or built in the Great State of Oklahoma."
In an interview with Reuters, Drummond said he remains Trump's "biggest ally in Oklahoma," but that he is being criticized by the president "for doing my job" to protect the state's environment.
"This became a material issue when Trump decided that whoever flipped would get his support and his endorsement," Drummond told Reuters. "Mazzei was all too happy to sell out Oklahoma."
Mazzei, who runs a Tulsa wealth management firm, said in a statement that he is "proud to stand with President Trump and support a project he's made clear is a national security imperative." Mazzei's campaign turned down multiple interview requests.
ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS
Drummond, whose family operates a cattle ranch, worries that the smelter would emit air and water pollutants. He has referred to EGA's owners, sovereign wealth funds tied to the United Arab Emirates government, as an "Islamic foreign monarchy."
Agriculture contributes far less to the state's gross domestic product than heavy industry, but ranchers are still a key voting bloc in a state where the two have coexisted for decades.
Todd Morgan, a Republican voter and retired oil trader, said he sees the potential economic benefits of the smelter but has concerns about its effect on the environment and electricity rates, which are among the lowest in the country.
"I'm definitely on the fence, pending answers to those questions," said Morgan, who lives about 20 miles from the proposed smelter.
Term-limited Governor Kevin Stitt, who has endorsed Mazzei, has pushed to make the state the epicenter of America's critical minerals expansion.
"It's very unfortunate that you have the state's attorney general literally using scare tactics to try and confuse and make this an issue, just because he didn't get Trump's endorsement," Stitt told Reuters.
Century and EGA said they are committed to "meeting the highest standards for environmental performance" and complying with regulatory standards, with a spokesperson adding that they will work with whomever wins the race.
HAY POLLUTION CONCERNS
The smelter has struck a nerve in Inola, a pastoral community of roughly 2,000 residents that bills itself as the "Hay Capital of the World."
The city council imposed a moratorium on permits for a new smelter through the end of September on concerns that the emissions could harm livestock.
The Energy Department has also been pushing voters to support the project.
"Having a smelter in your community means stable, important jobs that will never be replaced with AI," Assistant Energy Secretary Audrey Robertson told Reuters.
Robertson flew to Inola for a June city council meeting but was heckled by attendees with other ideas about where to put the smelter.
"Build it in Mar-a-Lago!" they shouted, referring to Trump's private Florida golf club.
(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder; Editing by Veronica Brown and David Gaffen)
