U.S. Rep. James Lankford has won the Republican nomination for Oklahoma’s open U.S. Senate seat, the Associated Press reported.

Lankford avoids a runoff and faces the Democratic nominee and an independent in November by capturing over 50 percent of the vote on Tuesday in the seven-person GOP primary field.

The seat was open because United States Sen. Tom Coburn chose to forego the last two years remaining on his term amid a cancer recurrence, according to the AP.

The state’s other senator, James Inhofe, also was on the ballot and easily grabbed his GOP primary.

Lankford, 46 -- a two-term congressman and Baptist minister from Edmond -- Lankford was up against a tough challenge from tea party-backed T.W. Shannon, who became both the youngest and the first African-American speaker of the House in 2013.