How an independent can get elected

By STEVE BRAWNER

Today let’s talk about two independents who were on Arkansas’ March 3 ballot – one explicitly independent, one functionally so. The explicit one lost badly. The functional one won easily. 

There’s probably a lesson to be learned there – by me, if by no one else.

I’ve long hoped that voters would elect more centrist, commonsense independent candidates who are not beholden to the Republican and Democratic parties, which together have created the $39 trillion national debt. Three or four truly independent U.S. senators could serve as the balance of power and force the two parties to behave more responsibly.

But voters haven’t elected many independents – not at the federal level, and not at the state level. In fact, there have been only eight independent U.S. senators since 1983. There currently are two, but they generally work with Democrats. There’s one independent in the House of Representatives, Rep. Kevin Kiley from California, but until very recently he was a Republican. 

Back to March 3 in Arkansas.

The explicit independent was Adam Watson of Branch, who lost his state Senate District 26 race, 69% to 31%, to Republican businessman and now state Sen. Brad Simon, R-Paris.

Before the campaign, Watson had been a leading opponent of Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ proposed 3,000-bed prison in Franklin County. There is widespread opposition to the prison there. But that wasn’t enough to help him win. 

His campaign ran into some tough realities. First, voters really do look at party labels. Many probably didn’t know much about Watson but do know they lean Republican. Furthermore, Simon was a good candidate who also strongly opposed the prison, depriving Watson of that issue. He’s also from a bigger community and was raised in the district. Watson is a relative newcomer. 

Finally, Franklin County residents may not be as fired up about the prison as one might think. Turnout in the special election was 24.29%, almost exactly the 24.25% that turned out statewide.

In contrast, the functional independent running in the adjacent Senate District 28, Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, won the Republican primary with almost 60% of the vote against Bobby Ballinger.

King won easily despite the fact that Ballinger was a strong candidate supported by Sanders and other Republican Party leaders. Ballinger’s dad was a former state senator who defeated King in 2018 and then lost to him in 2022.

I don’t know how much King’s constituents know about him. State senators are not celebrities. Many voters looking at the ballot might only have known that he is a Republican and an incumbent. In Arkansas, incumbents rarely lose.  

Those who do follow Arkansas state politics would know that King often goes against his own party. He is not afraid to strongly criticize the governor, her appointees, and his own Senate leadership. He does not go along to get along.

The other side of the coin is that, with his combative style, he doesn’t pass many bills. In fact, he successfully sponsored only one in the last two legislative sessions. He believes it’s more important to stop bad bills.

Whatever the election’s explanations, King, the independent Republican, won. Watson, the independent independent, lost, as independent independents almost always do.  

One possible conclusion is that voters aren’t just looking at these labels to determine what a candidate is. It’s more that they are looking for what a candidate is not. And that would be … not a member of the party they don’t support.

King’s “R” by his name tells voters in his mostly rural, conservative district that he aligns with the Republican Party to some degree, but more importantly to them, that he’s not a Democrat. 

A candidate having an “I” beside his name wouldn’t quite give those voters that same assurance, no matter his stances on the issues. They might reason that if he were actually a conservative, he would call himself a Republican. They might suspect he was a Democrat in disguise. 

The same dynamic would work in reverse in a blue state where an independent might try to run against a Democrat.

The biggest takeaway is that King has shown a politician can act independently. But politicians who want to win probably can’t call themselves independents.

I guess I’m the last one to figure that out. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Steve Brawner’s column is syndicated to 24 outlets in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com.