Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma said on Tuesday that he had chosen an energy executive and fellow Republican, Alan S. Armstrong, to temporarily fill the Senate vacancy left by Markwayne Mullin, the new homeland security secretary.
Mr. Armstrong, 63, is expected to be sworn in later Tuesday and is poised to play a caretaker role in the Senate until the end of the year. Oklahoma law requires Senate appointees to sign affidavits promising they will not seek election to a full term. President Trump has endorsed Representative Kevin Hern, who is running in the November election to serve in the next term.
Mr. Armstrong leads the board of directors at Williams Companies, a giant natural gas pipeline operator based in Tulsa, Okla., his hometown. He joined the company more than three decades ago and was its president from 2011 to 2025. The company says it gathers, processes and transports about a third of the natural gas used in the United States daily.
Mr. Armstrong has not been heavily involved in partisan politics, but he has been civically engaged, leading the Tulsa Regional Chamber of Commerce and offering regular feedback on city projects, said G.T. Bynum, the mayor of Tulsa from 2016 to 2024.
Mr. Bynum, a Republican, said he knew Mr. Armstrong well, describing him as low-key and practical. But, Mr. Bynum added, “I couldn’t tell you anything about his personal politics.”
Mr. Armstrong is viewed skeptically by some of Mr. Trump’s most loyal supporters. Laura Loomer, a far-right activist who is close to the president, had spoken out against Mr. Armstrong as an option to fill the Senate seat, saying on social media that the oilman would be a “Never Trump replacement.”
In 2021, Mr. Armstrong donated thousands of dollars to the political campaign of Adam Kinzinger, according to campaign finance filings. Mr. Kinzinger, a Republican then representing Illinois in Congress, had broken sharply with Mr. Trump earlier that year, joining nine other House Republicans who voted to impeach him over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Mr. Trump’s endorsement of Mr. Hern cleared his path to the Senate. Oklahoma is a deeply conservative state, and other Republicans once seen as possible contenders said they would not run.
Among the Republicans who passed was Mr. Stitt, a second-term governor who is barred by state law from running for a third term.
Mr. Mullin, who is also from Tulsa and who is a close ally of Mr. Trump, spent a decade in the House. He was in his first term in the Senate when Mr. Trump fired Kristi Noem as homeland security secretary this month and chose Mr. Mullin as her replacement.
Mr. Mullin was confirmed as homeland security secretary on Monday.
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