Arkansas Democrats face millions in spending and Cook’s Republican ratings
An NPR poll found that voters wanted Congress to act as a check on Trump and trusted Democrats more on issues. As the 2026 midterm election entered its final days, Democratic Senate candidate Hallie Shoffner and other Arkansas Democrats were crisscrossing the state with a message intended to capitalize on the Trump administration’s unpopularity, stubbornly high prices and anti-incumbency sentiment, NPR reported.
Arkansas enters the race as one of the most conservative states in the country: nearly two out of three voters supported President Trump in 2024 and Republican Sen. Tom Cotton in 2020. Against that baseline, Shoffner told NPR, “We’re the sleeper race,” and added, “I mean, we’re the race that no one’s noticed and that no one is going to see coming.”
Forecasts and spending frame the Arkansas race
NPR reported that Senate races in Kansas, Iowa, Ohio and Texas were viewed as tossups and that the landscape of potentially competitive House races stretched deep into conservative territory. NPR characterized Arkansas as a bridge too far for election forecasters. The Cook Political Report rated Arkansas’ 2nd Congressional District “Likely Republican” and the Senate race “Solid Republican.” Republicans have taken some notice, pre-emptively pouring millions of dollars into the Senate race and the Little Rock-based 2nd Congressional District and mounting robust get-out-the-vote efforts to try to stem the rising tide of dissatisfaction with the party, NPR reported.
Among the related coverage NPR linked from its Arkansas report, a newly competitive Kansas Senate race was described as a test of the limits of Trump’s unpopular policies. Another linked report examined broader farm-country dissatisfaction with Trump as the midterms approached, while a third focused on three generations of Alabama voters confronting a changing political environment as the midterms loomed.
Candidates make competing economic arguments
At lunchtime Friday, a crowd ate at Tailgater’s Burger Company as Shoffner said her most important political label was being an Arkansan rather than her party affiliation. She criticized what she called a historically unproductive Congress driven by extreme voices in each party and pitched herself to receptive but skeptical voters as a candidate who would better serve their needs. Shoffner is a multigenerational farmer who shut down her family’s operation in 2025, citing financial headwinds from rising input costs and Trump administration tariff and trade policies. NPR said that decision inspired her Senate run and much of her campaign’s focus. During a tour in a side-by-side utility vehicle, she recounted leaving the farm for nonprofit work and returning home when her father got sick.
She does not buy arguments that her chances are low. “This race isn’t about Democrats or Republicans or independents or any of that,” she said. “This isn’t some kind of weird political alignment, this is a values alignment. This is reorienting representation in Arkansas based on common sense, based on compassion and based on showing up.” She said national Republicans and Democrats had made the mistake of ignoring Arkansas residents’ needs, especially in agriculture and trade policy. With record diesel prices, the war in Iran and tariffs, Shoffner said she believed Arkansas voters of all political stripes wanted something different.
She also described feeling left behind by decisions made without Arkansas residents. “I come from a place, a community, that died in my lifetime,” she said. “I was the last one left and I felt left behind. I felt like no one was really talking to me or talking about me. I felt like folks were making decisions about me, but without me, and ultimately they were rewriting the rules.” Shoffner also said she was glad the race had not drawn an influx of outside air support from national Democratic groups. “I don’t need them, I really don’t,” she said. “This is an Arkansas First campaign, and I’m an Arkansan, and I want to talk directly to Arkansans, and I want them to know that when I go to D.C., the only letters that will mean anything next to my name are the ‘A’ and the ‘R.’”
In the 2nd Congressional District, Democratic candidate Chris Jones is challenging Republican Rep. French Hill. Jones has the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and is one of dozens of “Red to Blue” flip targets. At an outdoor jazz night at a brewery in Little Rock, he worked the crowd between visits to polling sites and a high school football homecoming game, in a campaign that has seen millions of dollars in outside spending by Republicans, which they deployed pre-emptively to stem dissatisfaction with the party. “They understand that people are in pain,” he said. “Folks are hurting. They can’t afford gas. They can’t afford groceries. And our campaign has always been about affordability and accountability for all. So prices are way too high.”
Jones ran for governor against Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in 2022 and lost, giving him higher name recognition as a serious challenger to Hill. Jones knew it was a tall task even though the national environment was more favorable to Democrats. Hill is a longtime incumbent whose district only became more conservative after the last Census-led redistricting in 2021. Jones said Democrats, Republicans and independent voters were open to looking for something other than the current leadership. “Here’s what’s so fascinating: a lot of folks here voted for the president and this administration because they wanted lower prices, they wanted to end foreign wars, and they wanted to end corruption, particularly with the Epstein files,” he said. “None of that has happened, so they’re super frustrated.”
NPR compared Arkansas with states seen as having the potential for close races next week, saying the state has a longer history of single-party control that produced anger and frustration at the status quo and incumbency in a way that extends beyond typical partisan labels or voting history. “One of the things that we forget, because there’s so much that comes out of this administration: It wasn’t but 15 years ago that the entire federal delegation of Arkansas was Democrat,” he said. “So it’s not that long ago. The reason they got in office was because of the conditions that existed, the economic anxiety and pain that people feel — and folks feeling like what they wanted to happen out of Washington was not happening. We’re in that same place now.”
Jones’s campaign has hosted former Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear have endorsed his run. Jones said he had heard from people who do not normally support Democrats that they would back his campaign. “Folks are literally hurting, and it’s to the point where they’re saying, ‘my life is so bad that I don’t care about party anymore,’” he said.
Local supporters tied the race to economic needs rather than party labels. At an outdoor coffee shop in Arkadelphia, Vanilla Hannah said she was supporting Shoffner and discussing her own reelection bid as a local justice of the peace. She said it was possible for Arkansas to elect Democrats this year because the crop of candidates seemed willing to work with people to meet their needs, and she added that there were a lot of them. “When it comes down to basic needs or whatever, the ‘D’ or the ‘R’ after your name don’t mean a thing, because we’re all suffering and all having the same issues and everybody’s ready for a change,” she said. She added that running for election was not simply about Democratic, Republican or libertarian policies, but about what candidates believed, and that more people seemed to be developing a common belief. At a small family farm in nearby Bierne, several members of the Hatley family cooked sorghum to make syrup and talked about why they were supporting Shoffner.
Black turnout and redistricting remain distinct factors
NPR reported that another factor working in Democrats’ favor this election cycle was a surge in Black turnout following a Supreme Court decision that weakened part of the Voting Rights Act. In primaries following the ruling and during early voting this month, sustained higher Black turnout in states such as South Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana could affect the outcome in key races across the region.
NPR also reported that multiple states across the South rushed to redraw House maps to gain a partisan advantage, with many new districts crafted to minimize Black voting power. Arkansas lawmakers did not redraw their maps, and the state has an entirely Republican congressional delegation. But a Little Rock split after the 2020 Census made Hill’s district more Republican.
Jones said the higher turnout reflected what people viewed as an imminent threat to their right to vote. “I think part of it is that folks realized that there was an imminent threat to their right to vote,” he said. “And people realized across the country that if we don’t show up now, and Black folks realize if we don’t speak up now, then our ability to do it later might not be there.” Marcus Hatley, one of the people who met with Shoffner at the Hatley family farm, said the increased turnout seemed like a “course correction.” “People are dissatisfied with the way that that happened, and some are crossing sides and voting in a different direction,” he said. “And a lot of it has to do with removing, in some of those states, the ability for people of color to have equal representation in their districts. So it looks like to me there’s going to be a course correction. I could be wrong, but I believe there’s going to be a change.”
With the midterms in their final days, Shoffner is emphasizing local representation while Jones is centering affordability and accountability. The candidates argue that economic pressure and anti-incumbency sentiment could open an opportunity in a state with a strong Republican voting history. They face millions in pre-emptive Republican spending and Cook ratings that favor Republicans. Separately, NPR reported sustained higher Black turnout in Southern states such as South Carolina, Georgia and Louisiana as another factor working in Democrats’ favor.