Rich Shumate: Revenge, scandal and Democrats struggling for relevancy

By RICH SHUMATE | Columnist, Arkansas Advocate

The first turkey has yet to be carved, and the first present has yet to be opened, but thanks to Arkansas’ inexplicably early March primary, we’re arrived at election season before the first forkful of stuffing.

Our 2026 political feast features Democrats not running, a governor bent on revenge, Supreme Court justices playing musical chairs, rematches, grudge matches and a would-be sheriff on trial for murder, with a pair of juicy sex scandals thrown in for dessert.

So let’s set the table.

Is Less Really A Strategy?

Given the turmoil Donald Trump and his minions have unleashed over the past year, weak approval numbers for Republicans, and the energy we’ve seen during No Kings protests across the state, we might have expected Arkansas Democrats to field a bumper crop of candidates trying to capitalize on what looks to be a more favorable than usual political environment.

That didn’t happen. Democrats conceded races for lieutenant governor, attorney general, treasurer, auditor and the open seat for land commissioner without firing a shot. By contrast, in 2022, Democrats ran candidates in all of those races, albeit without success.

In the battle for the Arkansas House, Democrats are contesting 46 of 100 seats, including just 25 Republican-held seats. Two years ago, they contested 64, the highest number in more than a decade, including 46 Republican-held seats.

The relative paucity of candidates means Democrats would have to flip nine of the 25 contested seats, without losing any of their own, to break the Republicans’ three-quarters supermajority, an advantage that lets them pass appropriation bills without Democratic input. To break the Senate supermajority, Democrats would need wins in all three contested Republican-held seats.

New Democratic Party Chair Marcus Jones has explained that the party is running fewer candidates in more winnable races to maximize resources. Republicans have scoffed at that claim, calling the lack of candidates a symptom of Democrats’ “disarray,” rather than any discernable strategy.

The smaller number of Democratic candidates in this cycle is perhaps understandable considering that two years ago, Democrats managed to flip just one Republican-held seat, that of Rep. Diana Gonzales Worthen, D-Springdale. 

Getting people to expend blood, sweat and tears on political races that they’re unlikely to win is a tough sell. But it’s also true that you can’t win if you don’t run.

Sanders Got Mad, But Can She Get Even?

Thwarted in her efforts to push through an ill-considered plan to build a mega-prison in Franklin County, Gov. Sarah Sanders followed through with threats to support primary challenges to two senators who defied her will, Bryan King, R-Green Forest, and Ron Caldwell, R-Wynne.

To challenge Caldwell, Sanders — who upon taking office made noisy protestations about the threat posed by TikTok — got behind a TikTok influencer, Trey (@BoDirt) Bohannan, who quickly ran into thorny questions about how long he’s lived in the 10th District.

To oust King, the governor is supporting Bobby Ballinger, the son of former Sen. Bob Ballinger. King has a long history with the family Ballinger, losing to the father in 2018 and then defeating him to reclaim the seat in 2022.

The primary is in March, and the legislative fiscal session begins in April. If Sanders is successful in defeating Caldwell or King, it’s likely to strengthen her hand in getting legislators to approve her pet prison project. But if her revenge tour falls flat, her leverage could evaporate.

Is This the Year French Finally Gets Fried?

Buoyed by a racially gerrymandered map that Republicans in the Arkansas Legislature pushed through to make his life easier, 2nd District Congressman French Hill defeated Marcus Jones by nearly 18 points in 2024.

But this time around, he’ll likely be facing Chris Jones, the pastor and rocket scientist who captured the public’s imagination with a spirited but ultimately doomed run against Sanders in 2022.

Chris Jones’ decision to opt against a rematch with Sanders puts her on a glide path toward re-election and gives him a more winnable (though still uphill) race against Hill, presuming Jones overcomes primary challenger Zack Huffman, a teacher from Little Rock.

Hill is also facing an interesting Republican primary challenge from Chase McDowell, a consultant from Little Rock who is running as a Trump-loving Christian conservative but who is also making an anti-establishment, affordability-based pitch to voters.

On his website, McDowell takes a whack at “party leaders who’ve forgotten what it means to work with calloused hands and humble hearts” — a sentiment that could resonate in a race against a congressman who spends a good deal of his time in Washington protecting the banking industry and promoting cryptocurrency.

Can the Farm Crisis Stunt the Cotton Crop?

Democrat Hallie Shoffner burst onto the political scene last March at a town hall in Little Rock, when she moved the crowd with the story of how she recently lost a farm near Newport that had been in her family for six generations. That personal narrative is at the center of her campaign to unseat U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton. 

Shoffner is making an appeal to rural voters affected by the farm crisis, voters who in recent years have been positively allergic to Democratic candidates. The fact that the woes facing Arkansas agriculture have been made much worse by Trump’s tariffs, which Cotton has done nothing to oppose, might make that argument easier.

While improving her numbers in rural Arkansas could potentially make this seat more competitive, running statewide against an entrenched incumbent is expensive. And while Shoffner has raised a respectable $660,000 so far, she hasn’t attracted the outside support she’ll likely need to overcome Cotton’s incumbency and campaign war chest.

How Many Seats Can Supreme Court Seat-Switchers Switch?

Supreme Court justices Cody Hiland and Nicholas Bronni were both barred from seeking re-election because they were appointed by Sanders, and state law precludes appointees from taking advantage of incumbency to perpetuate themselves in office.

But fear not! Hiland and Bronni are getting around this pesky law by running for each other’s seats on the high court, which complies with the letter of the law but blows its spirit to smithereens.

No one filed to run against Hiland, but Bronni drew a challenge from Little Rock attorney John Adams, a former assistant attorney general who represented the plaintiffs in a successful challenge to the library censorship law pushed through by Republican legislators.

Dangerous Vigilante, or Sheriff-Elect?

Charged with murder for shooting the man accused of molesting his daughter, Carlisle father Aaron Spencer turned the tables by running for Lonoke County sheriff against incumbent Jeff Staley.

Spencer’s trial, almost certain to generate an avalanche of publicity, is set for late January; the election is in early March. Given the wave of public sympathy for Spencer since his arrest, an acquittal could turn him from murder defendant to the county’s top law enforcement officer — and probably bring “Dateline” to town.

Is the Second (or Third) Time a Charm?

There are seven House races where Democrats who didn’t succeed in 2024 have returned for another shot at their Republican rivals. Two of them — Dexter Miller of Helena-West Helena and Rey Hernandez of Rogers — are running for a third time.

If this all seems a bit Sisyphean, it’s worth noting that Gonzales Worthen won her seat on the second try in 2024. 

Too Sexy for My … Re-Election?

Two incumbents seeking re-election are battling not only their opponents but unhelpful headlines about messiness in their personal lives.

Will Jones, the prosecutor in Pulaski and Perry counties, made a pre-emptive televised mea culpa after his wife, a North Little Rock district judge, caught him in flagrante delicto with his married chief deputy, an indiscretion that set social media on fire.

Even before watching his marriage implode on Facebook, Jones was already facing a strong challenge from Little Rock criminal defense attorney Bobby Forrest Jr.

Meanwhile, in Russellville, Republican Rep. Matt Duffield, a former pro wrestler, got a bit of chair to the face after police investigating a string of burglaries stopped two women in a car outside of his house, one of whom had a “wad of cash” and a previous prostitution conviction.

He will face Russellville pastor David Howell in the primary and, should he survive, Democrat Jennifer Lewter, a biology professor at Arkansas Tech, in the general election.

Food Coma, or Upset Tummy?

And so with the table set, let us proceed to the political feast, hopeful that our candidates will get to enjoy the last, sweet piece of pie, rather than getting stuck washing the dishes. (And perhaps also thankful that these holiday analogies have mercifully come to an end.)