Mayor David Holt elected 2025-2026 president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors

Mayor David Holt | City of Oklahoma City website

By OKC Standard Report

Jun 6, 2023

Today at the Annual Meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors in Columbus, the membership elected Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt to serve as the 2025-2026 President of the organization.

In the near term, Mayor Holt assumes office immediately as the organization’s Second Vice President. In 2024, Holt will become First Vice President. At the Annual Meeting in the summer of 2025, Mayor Holt will become the 83rd President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

“I am incredibly grateful and excited for the honor of serving in these roles,” said Mayor Holt. “Mayors are the most visionary, effective and unifying leaders in our country right now, and the opportunity to represent them is an opportunity I am very grateful to have. I thank my fellow mayors for their belief in me. This also presents an opportunity to tell Oklahoma City’s story, and it’s a reminder to Oklahoma City that we have an incredible platform as America’s 20th-largest city.”

A member of the Osage Nation, Mayor Holt will be the first Native American President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. During their year in office, the President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors speaks for the nation’s mayors and their cities. Some of the most notable names in United States mayoral history have held the position, from LaGuardia to Daley to Landrieu. Holt is the second Mayor of Oklahoma City to hold the position, joining Mick Cornett, who served as President from 2016 to 2017.

Mayor Holt was elected to the Advisory Board of the Conference in 2019 and was elected a Trustee in 2020. In 2021, he served as national co-chair of mayoral efforts to pass the Bipartisan Instructure Law. He serves as Vice Chair of the International Affairs Committee, Co-Chair of the Task Force on Electric Vehicles, is a member of the Finance & Audit Committee, and has served as Chair of the Nominating Committee and as a member of the Site Selection Committee.

Holt was elected as Mayor of Oklahoma City in 2018 with 78.5 percent of the vote and was re-elected in 2022 by a 40-point margin and with the most votes for any mayoral candidate since 1959. When he took office, Holt was the youngest Mayor of Oklahoma City since 1923, and he will be one of the youngest U.S. Conference of Mayors Presidents in history.

In his professional life, Holt is the Dean-Designate of the Oklahoma City University School of Law. Mayor Holt is a graduate of The George Washington University and Oklahoma City University. Mayor Holt is married to Rachel, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Office of Juvenile Affairs. They have two children, George and Margaret.

Oklahoma City has a population of 694,800 and is the 20th-largest city in the United States.

# # #

Media Contact

Kristy Yager

(405) 297-2550

kristy.yager@okc.gov