Polls predict Trump to rout Biden in state
With Election Day looming, Republican President Donald Trump has a substantial polling and fundraising edge in Arkansas over Democratic rival former Vice President Joe Biden.
The state hasn’t supported a Democrat for president since Bill Clinton’s reelection in 1996. Pollsters, party leaders and political science professors predict more of the same once the ballots are counted this year.
Neither presidential nominee has campaigned in Arkansas this year.
The Arkansas Poll, released Wednesday, showed Trump leading Biden 65%32%, a 33-point gap.
A Talk Business & Politics-Hendrix College survey, published Oct. 19, had Trump ahead by 25 points, 58%-33%.
Trump’s former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, foresees an outcome that’s
even more lopsided.
“My prediction is +40,” he said in late September.
“If we’re in trouble in Arkansas, we’re in big trouble,” he added.
While there’s little overlap politically between Republican Party of Arkansas Chairman Doyle Webb and Democratic Party of Arkansas Chairman Michael John Gray, the two leaders have similar views on the Natural State battle lines.
“President Trump will do very well in the 1st and the 4th [congressional] districts, will lead in percentages there. It will be a tighter race in the 3rd and the 2nd districts, but, overall, he will do very, very well in Arkansas,” Webb said.
Biden’s chances in the Natural State are slim, Gray acknowledges.
“We’re going to see a Trump win in Arkansas, though I think you’ll see some soft spots in the 2nd Congressional [District] and in the Delta,” he said.
The Democratic Party is also making inroads in Northwest Arkansas, he said.
In the 1st District, a swath of counties whose residents are predominantly Black remain reliably Democratic.
Jefferson County, in the 4th District, has also bucked the state’s Republican tide.
Pulaski County, the heart of the 2nd District, hasn’t backed a Republican presidential candidate since the 1980s.
The six other counties in the 2nd District typically lean heavily Republican.
If voters in Benton, Bryant and Conway stay true to form, it’s good news for Republican U.S. Rep. French Hill of Little Rock, who is facing a stiff challenge from state Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock.
If the Republican margins outside Pulaski County shrink, “we’ll have a congressperson, I think, from Little Rock that’s a Democrat,” Gray said.
But, Webb said Democrats’ dreams of an upset in that race will be dashed on Election Day, and Hill will win a fourth term.
Since the Civil War, Northwest Arkansas has been the state’s largest — and at times, only — Republican stronghold. It has remained red, even as Benton and Washington counties have grown larger, wealthier and more heavily urbanized.
Now, the state’s reddest territory is arguably northeast Arkansas and the rest of the 1st Congressional District; or it might be southwest Arkansas and the rest of the 4th Congressional District.
“The 1st and the 4th are growth areas in the Republican Party,” Webb said.
Both have lower population density than the rest of the state, and both backed Trump over Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 by better than 2-to-1.
“President Donald Trump is obviously dominant in rural America, so it makes perfect sense,” said Jay Barth, an emeritus political science professor at Hendrix College.
While this year’s votes won’t be tallied until Tuesday, the fundraising figures are pouring in, and they show Trump way ahead in the state.
Arkansans had donated $2.25 million to the Republican’s reelection efforts as of Oct. 14, nearly double the $1.18 million reported by Biden.
Fivethirtyeight.com, statistician Nate Silver’s website, gives Biden less than a 1-in100 chance of winning in the Natural State. Nationwide, only Oklahoma, West Virginia and Wyoming are more pro-Trump, according to its analysis.
With the state now in Republican hands, Democrats have struggled to remain competitive.
They failed to field a candidate against Republican U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton of Little Rock and his Libertarian challenger, Ricky Dale Harrington of Pine Bluff.
In the 1st District, Republican U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford of Jonesboro is unopposed.
In the 3rd District, Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Womack of Rogers faces Democrat Celeste Williams of Bella Vista and Libertarian Michael Kalagias of Rogers.
In the 4th District, Republican U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman of Hot Springs is challenged by Democrat William Hanson of Hot Springs and Libertarian Frank Gilbert of White Hall.
Republican presidential candidates have carried the state five straight times, with their victory margins steadily rising.
Four years ago, Trump topped Hillary Clinton in Arkansas, 60.6% to 33.7%, and that may not have been the high-water mark, according to University of Arkansas, Fayetteville political science professor Janine Parry.
“Trump may actually increase his vote share in 2020,” she said.
Unlike the rest of the country, Arkansas voters appear “fully prepared to double down on their guy,” she said.
If polls are correct, Trump will lose the national popular vote while winning big in the Natural State, Parry said.
“Arkansas is going to be outside, very much outside, sort of defiantly outside, the mainstream this round,” she added.