Fall vote holds hope of gains for Democrats
State chairman aims to end GOP House super-majority
Three state legislative races are headed toward runoff elections after Tuesday’s primary.
The Democratic primaries for House District 35 and House District 63 and the Republican primary for House District 88 will need one more round of voting to determine the winners.
In party primary contests in Arkansas, if a candidate fails to get more than 50% of the vote the top two vote-getters will face off head-to-head in a runoff election.
In House District 88, which includes Hempstead and parts of Miller and Howard counties, Arnetta Bradford, who was endorsed by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, will face Dolly Henley in a runoff election.
With 100% of votes counted, unofficial returns were:
Arnetta Bradford 1,437 Dolly Henley 1,374 Robert Bradford 231
As of the latest vote count, Lincoln Barnett led the House District 63 Democratic primary over Fred Leonard.
With 100% of the votes counted, unofficial returns were:
Lincoln Barnett 835 Fred Leonard 729 Billy Thomen 160
The District 63 seat is currently held by Rep. Deborah Ferguson, D-West Memphis, who is not running for reelection. The district includes parts of Crittenden and St. Francis counties.
“I’m glad to have support within the district for my candidacy for state [representative], although I was hoping to avoid a runoff,” Barnett said.
In the Democratic primary for House District 35, Jessie McGruder will likely face a runoff election against Raymond Whiteside. The district includes parts of Crittenden and Cross counties.
With 100% of votes counted, unofficial returns were: Jessie McGruder 629 Raymond Whiteside 321
Demetris Johnson 208 Sherry Holliman 192
PARTIES REACT
Less than 24 hours after polls closed, Democratic Party of Arkansas Chairman Grant Tennille said during a news conference Wednesday afternoon that new poll data shows signs of optimism for Democrats in Arkansas in 2024.
The poll, conducted by
Clarity Campaign Lads, surveyed 970 registered voters in Arkansas from Feb. 8-12 and shows Democrats still trail Republicans in statewide support but are about level with the GOP in several key battleground districts, Tennille said.
“In the areas with the most competitive legislative races, which we refer to as battleground counties and battleground districts, there is a dead-heat between Democrats and Republicans with a slight preference for Republicans at the county level and a slight preference for Democrats on the district-specific level,” Tennille said.
Polling showed voters in key legislative races favored Democrats to Republicans 47% to 45%, Tennille said, although the state Democratic Party chair did not specify what districts those were.
Tennille said the current General Assembly makeup doesn’t reflect actual public opinion, adding that “voters across Arkansas responded positively to our position” on abortion and education issues.
Democrats contend Republican support has dropped after the Legislature passed the LEARNS Act, an expansive education law that includes universal school choice. The law, a legislative priority for Sanders, allows students to use 90% of what the state pays to public schools in per-pupil funding to attend a private or home school.
Democrats were unified in their opposition to the law, saying diverting state funds from public schools would weaken communities and hurt local school districts.
For Republicans, Tuesday’s primary brought a new message as candidates Sanders endorsed all won — with the exception of Bradford, who is headed to a runoff against Henley in House District 88 — a sign of support for the governor’s agenda.
“Each candidate the governor endorsed won, or finished first going into a runoff after outperforming expectations,” Chris Caldwell, a senior adviser to Sanders said in a statement. “And all Republican candidates who ran on educational freedom and LEARNS won. This sends a crystal clear message of support for the Governors’ top priorities and her leadership. It was a great night for the state of Arkansas!”
Tennille said the goal for Democrats in November is to break the Republican’s super-majority, where Democrats hold only 18 out of 100 seats in the state House of Representatives and 6 of 35 seats in the Senate.
If Democrats can flip at least eight seats in the House or two in the Senate in November, they would have more influence on appropriations bills, which require a three-quarters vote to pass.
Tennille wouldn’t say what seats the party will target in November, but he highlighted 23 battleground counties that are concentrated into four blocs: Northwest Arkansas, Central Arkansas, southwest Arkansas and the Delta.
Tennille contends that flipping seats in November will require the type of work — such as door knocking — that Democrats aren’t used to in Arkansas because the party’s mostly uninterrupted rule of the state from the end of Reconstruction until 2010 left its leaders complacent.
“We controlled everything in the state for 135 years. We didn’t have to do anything. We barely had to file [to run] for office, we just got elected,” Tennille said. “There was no tradition of direct voter contact in this state — period — for a long, long time.
“The people who brought it here for the first time — [were] the Republicans in the ’90s. That’s how they built what they’ve got now.”
Seth Mays, executive director of the Republican Party of Arkansas, wasn’t impressed with Democratic pronouncements about the party’s chances at picking up seats. Mays said he has a file folder in his phone with screenshots of tweets from Democrats proclaiming each cycle they are poised to end the Republican’s super-majority, only to come up short in the general election.
“We are not worried about Grant Tennille and the [Democratic Party of Arkansas],” Mays said. “It doesn’t mean we take them lightly, and again it doesn’t mean we’re not going to make historic investments to do what’s right by our candidates.”
With such a hold on the General Assembly, Republicans are looking to defend more so than expand. Mays cited Republicans contesting House District 56, held by Democrat Rep. Steve Magie, or traditional Democratic strongholds in the Delta such as House Districts 63 and 35 as places where the GOP can make further gains in November.
In House District 63, Republican Tammi Northcutt Bell of West Memphis will face the winner of the runoff race between Barnett and Leonard.
In House District 35 Robert Thorne Jr., a member of the Crittenden County Quorum Court, defeated Gary Tobar in the Republican primary and will face the winner of the runoff between McGruder and Whiteside.
“Those are two Delta seats that, you know, on paper look to be Democratic seats, but we’ve never contested them so how do you know,” Mays said.