And.

Hello again everyone.

And welcome back to Arkansas Week campaign 26.

We're only hours away from early voting and only days remain before that certain November night when the numbers begin rolling in.

Much of the nation has been focused on federal races in other states.

But is it possible that a resolutely red Arkansas could see an upset and perhaps change the balance of power in Washington?

And can anything much come from a lame duck congressional session, as in maybe a farm bill?

In a moment, a view from the nation's capital, but closer to home.

First, the state House leadership is on the ballot, as are a couple of issues that could be affected by voter unease.

We'll chew over all of that now with some of the folks who've been covering the campaigns.

Here's Andrew Dimelo, editor in chief of the Arkansas Advocate.

Government reporter Jose Llanera of Little Rock Public Radio.

And from his post in Jonesborough, George Jarratt of Talk Business and Politics.

Thanks to everybody for coming in.

Andrew, we'll just start with you.

We've got a race for governor and I and an incumbent, you know, who wants to another four years.

Yeah.

You know, we've got a, you know, nationally known governor who has been mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2008, even has a book coming out the week after the midterms.

You know, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, she faces a challenge from Democratic Senator Fred Love, as well as libertarian Colt Shelby.

There's not been much polling that they're pulling on the race, but the polling that there's been, she seems in a relatively comfortable position.

Given how difficult the environment is for Republicans nationally right now.

You know, I think the big question we're going to be watching is, you know, seeing how, Colt Shelby, who's a libertarian, how much of the vote he gets and, you know, does he eat away at some of the Democratic support as being the alternative, candidate in this race?

You know, we saw in the debate, both both Love and Shelby went after her on multiple issues, including the future of Medicaid, including education, notably the school voucher program.

But it didn't really seem to kind of rattle her too much on it.

So I, you know, I don't think we're going to be watching that one as closely as the Senate race, but it's also it is a little bit of an uncertain environment where, you know, the national mood could still seep into it.

Yeah.

Money matters an awful lot.

And she has an awful lot of it.

Yeah, it's and this is something we see across the board in all of the races where Republicans are just they're out outraised and outspending Democrat candidates.

And that's really going to be the big challenge.

Right.

Right now for Democrats is just a complete lack of resources.

Yeah, Jose, we saw this last time when she ran against Chris Jones.

Chris Jones ran a pretty decent campaign considering the financial backing and resources that he had.

Right now she's running against Senator Fred Love, who is a state senator.

And he's a lot more silent.

We're seeing way less of a campaign coming out of him.

And there was a few times during the debate where he really set her up.

You know, he talked about literacy, and then she was able to come back and talk about the literacy portions of the Burns Act.

He talked about child hunger.

She was able to talk about the free breakfast initiatives that she was able to get passed in the legislature.

So I don't know how much of a challenge Sarah Huckabee Sanders faces.

I would argue she probably faces very little bit of a challenge.

But you're right.

There could be some, siphoning off of the votes from the libertarian tinge of purple sugar.

That could be a little bit of there.

Yeah, yeah.

George.

Let's go east.

George.

Yeah.

I kind of agree with what's been said so far.

I think that, Colt, the libertarian candidate in this race, I think he tried to throw a few shots at her during the debate, and she didn't take the bait.

You know, I think at the very beginning of the debate, he he grabbed the podium and said, I better be careful with this thing because, you know, they're expensive.

And, you know, she kind of shot him a look and he shot her a look, but she never really responded to that.

And so I think that she's probably in a pretty safe position, relatively speaking, like Andrew said, the polling has been in her favor.

And again, you know, and people who identify as independents in Arkansas tend to be right leaning to begin with.

So when those independents break, they're probably going to break towards the incumbent.

She should probably win pretty easily.

Yeah.

And you know, the reference to the reference to the podium, I think quite likely was lost to the great majority of the audience.

Other than well, we political junkie.

He also called Shelby, mentioned several times the DHS child hotline.

And he didn't explain totally what he meant by that.

I think he's referring to several cases now where people have called the DHS child hotline and not gotten responses, or there have been incidents where people were calling several times over one child abuse case, and he seemed to want to link that to the governor.

But it was very confusing when he explained it.

And I think he was trying to say that the governor was somehow responsible for the DHS child hotline problem.

That was it was an interesting thing to bring up in a gubernatorial debate.

Yeah.

Andrew.

Yeah.

You know, one of the most interesting moments for me also was there was a question about the death penalty and the botched execution that we saw, in Tennessee, and all three of the candidates expressed openness to, to the death penalty, the capital punishment.

And Cole Shelby even offered, having the firing squad as an option for, therefore, executions, which is, you know, kind of expanding the death penalty here.

So that was really interesting.

And, you know, Fred Love talked about how he's previously leaned against, the death penalty and appeared more open to it, but didn't really kind of walk through what his change of heart was on that issue.

Yeah.

A death penalty question never changed the political dynamic in Arkansas at all.

Yeah.

For you, I have had any number of Democrats.

Well, first of all, the political situation, you know, the economic situation of Arkansas and the country is significantly different than it was on the day the ticket closed.

And a lot of Arkansans are telling me that they are political insiders anywhere saying that, Fred, Love is the wrong man at the wrong time, the wrong year.

And if the Democrats had found a different nominee, the race could be significantly different.

Jose, it's possibly true.

I'm not seeing a lot of Fred love out on the campaign trail right now.

It's also possibly true that Sarah Huckabee just has she has this national profile.

She's been campaigning for president a little bit since day one.

She's knocked off a lot of red priorities, and she's a she's just a big name in Arkansas.

And so I think, you know, if Chris Jones, who had some national profile when he ran against her, if he wasn't able to win, it may just be a red race from here on out.

Yeah.

But she's still odds on favorite.

I mean, you know Andrea.

Yeah.

And you know, the thing that's interesting with Senator Love is that his most memorable proposal so far has been his promise to sign an executive order repealing repealing school vouchers if he becomes governor, which you even have Democrats pointing out that under Arkansas Constitution, you can't do that.

You know, there's there's a reason why you have a legislature.

And so that's kind of stood out as his most notable proposal that, you know, so far.

And I think that's a little bit of the challenge as well.

Yeah.

And he said repeal learns that he's going to sign an executive order repeal Lance, which would mean you would be cutting the literacy portions of the bill that even Democrats seem to agree with.

And then he was mentioning literally in the debates, it was an odd it was an odd, promise to make.

Yeah.

George will give you the last word on, from the Delta over there on the governor's race.

Yeah.

I mean, I kind of agree what they're saying as far as Fred goes.

I haven't seen him up in this part of the state.

Very much so.

I don't know how much he's campaigning.

I will say this, you know, and this is just based on social media posts that I get, universally, from the post I read, people thought that quote actually won the debate, and I saw several people, encouraging their fellow conservatives to vote for him.

So it'll be interesting to see if he can get a, you know, a few more percentage points than the libertarian candidate in, in most races normally get.

Yeah.

Well, one final word on that race and that it's Mr.

Shelby was plainly the aggressor or the more aggressive of the two challengers.

Anyway, took the took it to her.

Yeah.

And.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, and I think, you know, he's been a very outspoken critic.

He's gotten, you know, support from some conservatives.

But you also have some Democrat leaning, leaning voters and supporters of him as well too, who may not necessarily agree with him on everything because he's still pretty conservative on on issues like immigration.

So that's why I'm going to be watching to see what of support does eat into does it into hers, or does he eat into the Democrats?

Yeah.

On to Secretary of State.

Recent events in recent years have made it clear that secretaries of state who oversee the voting process, are very can be extremely important people.

Jose.

And we have a race this year.

We got an open seat.

Yeah.

And so there's some things that are, the secretary state can't do.

You know, we're talking about signatures, Mail-In, voting laws, wet signature on valid applications.

These are things that the legislature is in charge of, but it is the job of the secretary of State to enforce the law.

So one of the questions I asked was, would you certify an election that you didn't agree with?

Is there any situation where you wouldn't certify an election?

And pretty uniformly, all three of them are adamant that they would just follow the law and they would certify the election.

Another interesting role of the Secretary of state is in the ballot initiative process.

It's their job for their office to certify whether or not the signatures are legitimate.

And we've had a bunch of signatures throughout the past.

There's been allegations of organizations having duplicate signatures, and all three were pretty adamant that they would just, follow the law.

So there really was this rivalry during the debate about election security versus getting out the vote and having more people show up to vote and whether or not where you draw the line and, you know, is it the job of the secretary state to get people out to vote?

Yeah.

And in fact, when the attorney general, who has to approve ballot totals and it gets can get really complicated.

Yeah.

And that's kind of the main message that you seek out of the debate in that race is that, you have the libertarian candidate in the Democratic candidate going after Senator Kim Hamer for his sponsorship of several measures restricting the initiative process.

You know, that's the the main criticism against him.

The interesting thing is he he went through a pretty brutal primary, where he was challenged from the right.

Kim Hamer is a very conservative lawmaker, but still was being challenged from the from the right and was very divisive, you know, primary runoff campaign, and kind of coming there, coming out of that, you know, to face this race.

I don't know if the, positions he's taken on ballot initiatives is really going to have as much of that, as much of a factor here.

But that's clearly the main line of attack against him.

Yeah.

A note on that primary.

Our friend Hal Bass, American Standard lost at all, likes to point out that that primary featured the candidates representing the three legs of the Trump stool, and it was Senator Hamer who emerged from it.

Yeah.

And you know, Hamer, I think he's more you know, he's more of the mainstream candidate, but he's still a very conservative candidate.

He had the backing of, you know, top Republicans around the state, including the, you know, the governor and her and her allies.

But it kind of turned into a, you know, fight against the right wing in the very right wing of the Republican Party, essentially.

Yeah, yeah.

George Jarrett yeah.

I think that Ken's in a pretty good position to win that race is to lose.

You know, the funny thing is, is that these guys always say that they'll follow the law when they're when they're trying to win an election.

But we'll see what happens if a controversial issue pops up where they have to throw out signatures, or if there is some election result that, their party or their, their way of thinking doesn't agree with.

Yeah.

We have also some ballot issues to see that certainly bear watching.

There are three ballot issues that you're going to see when you go to vote.

The first one is about citizens only voting.

It it's already in Arkansas to vote if you're not a citizen.

The language in the amendment would just change a few words in the Constitution to reiterate that fact.

And the second one, it specifies firearm components and it specifies hunting as part of the gun rights umbrella.

And then the third one is about economic development districts.

And I think this one will be the most interesting to watch.

Basically, an economic development district is an area of land that gets special privileges under our system.

And so companies maybe could get more tax breaks.

They could get more, state money.

If you had a corporation that was built in that area of land.

So we're going to see that one passes.

I think it's interesting to do to try to go for an Ed amendment.

Right now.

There's we have a lot of concern about, for example, data centers.

And so there's a lot of concern about how that how that would play out.

We also don't exactly know.

We know there is going to be some kind of local elections that will happen.

Regarding EDS.

You're not just going to get an Ed in your neighborhood.

There'll be some kind of democratic voting process, but we don't know what that's going to look like until the legislature decides on the rules.

And so there's a lot of concern about how that could look.

Yes.

When it plays out.

Yeah.

Andrew it's not may not it's always up to the voters.

May not necessarily be the best here to try something that seems terribly complicated to a great many voters.

Well yeah.

And especially as Jody said, you know, if this gets wrapped up in the data center issue, what we're seeing, not just in Arkansas, across the country right now, is a backlash over data centers, and it's a bipartisan issue.

And so if this gets wrapped up with suspicion that a lot of a lot of people have both on the right and the left, and people view this as essentially kind of a referendum on, on supporters of data centers.

I think it's I think it's in trouble.

Yeah.

I think you're seeing pushback.

Some of the loudest pushback you're seeing, actually, from some conservatives, over this.

And it also has kind of wrapped up with some of the backlash that we've seen over the Generating Arkansas Jobs Act and some of the impacts of that as well, too.

So I think that's going to be, you know, of the four that's going to be the one that's probably gonna keep us up the latest that night.

Yeah, yeah.

And, George, you know, this is we're at a time where I, particularly, well, everywhere I, you know, farmers, everybody who uses diesels being six bucks a gallon for it.

Excuse me.

And, we city folks are paying, you know, three bucks or more or approaching four sometimes for gasoline.

So there is I use the word on these as I kind of vote or on these other, that's palpable that, that could, you know, have a big bearing on Election Day.

George.

Yeah, absolutely.

This war in Iran is never ending the Strait of Hormuz.

Barely any tankers are getting through.

This problem, everything that I'm reading and seeing and hearing from insiders is that this problem, this fuel problem is only going to get worse.

And, you know, I live up in, you know, the Delta.

And, you know, I can tell you right now, over the last, year, I've seen more fallow fields than I've ever seen in my life up here.

You know, sometimes, in the spring, a farmer will plant a field, and then now it's just sitting there.

They don't even bother to to pull the crop out of the ground, because it would cost them more just in fuel cost to pull it out of the ground than it would to take it to market.

So, there's been a devastating effect up in this part of the state.

The trade wars, the tariffs, all that kind of stuff has closed international markets for farmers.

You know, they were already facing some pretty strong headwinds heading into this year.

We've had a couple of bad years just from weather drought, commodity prices have been low.

And now, you know, on top of all that, the federal assistance has not been nearly enough.

We haven't had a farm bill passed since 2018.

Depending upon how this election goes, there's a real good chance we probably won't get a farm bill passed now.

I mean, we've been promised all year long.

You know, it was going to get passed in March.

Are we going to get passed in May?

Then it was going to be in September when they came back.

And last time I checked, it's October 16th and we still don't have a farm.

Bill.

Well, George out there, and your your side of the state anyway, you got a high input cost.

Fuel, fertilizer, everything, weather conditions, market shattered, trade tariffs all over the place is the community is the ag community.

Can we do we know if it is collectively assigning the blame for for that?

I think that it's starting to break against the president.

You know, I, I've got several friends who are very conservative.

They're farmers.

I've got another friend who's a bankruptcy attorney.

You know, he said he would handle like maybe one farm, bankruptcy a year.

You know, throughout his career, he's been absolutely inundated.

I had another friend who owns a farm, and he said that, one plot of land that they own, there were three other far there, three other owners that, their properties abutted his.

And all three of them have approached him about buying their land because they just can't do it anymore.

So I don't know that the, the ire towards, President Trump is as high among farmers in Arkansas as compared to, let's say, farmers in Iowa or Texas, because it seems to be having more of an effect in states like that.

But there's a culminating point.

And I can tell you right now that that some of the, some of the more conservative candidates are getting a little nervous about what's going on with the farm community in the state.

Yeah.

And Andrew, though, and Jose, those are counties, those Delta counties where Mr.

Trump just scored enormous margins.

Yeah.

And you're in three elections.

Yeah.

And you know, this is it's interesting when you see some of the messaging right now, from the Senate race, the governor's race.

And so these are races where you have, Republicans here are running on very similar messages as Trump and Trump allies.

They're not mentioning the president.

So they're kind of running on Trumpism without Trump, that they're basically or they're citing national Democratic figures who they're counting on being more politically toxic in Arkansas than the president right now.

This this is the most favorable, political environment for Democrats in Arkansas in a long time.

It's still a bit of a challenge in Arkansas to be able to build up the numbers and make it competitive, especially when you don't have those national resources coming in and you have this huge fundraising gap.

Yeah.

Jose.

Yeah, affordability is really the big word in this election.

It was interesting to watch a lot of these Republican congressional candidates at the debates.

A lot of them didn't condemn the war in Iran, and a lot of them had pretty lukewarm things to say about tariffs.

And there was some mixed messaging about exactly how they're going to combat the affordability crisis.

I thought one of the most interesting debates was the one where Tom cotton didn't show up.

And we got to see, Haley Schaffner is a former farmer.

Talk about what that's been like as a farmer and the affordability crisis.

And then the actual congressional candidate wasn't there to respond to how they're going to fight affordability in Congress.

Yeah.

Thank you for that segue way.

Yeah.

We'll go to the Senate race.

And, Andrew, you were reporting only this morning about and you get out a well-funded GOP Arkansas, get out the vote.

Yeah.

I got you know, Cotton's campaign is funding $1 million, get out the vote effort for it for state Republicans right now.

You know, this is a race that just a couple months ago looked like it could end up being pre competitive.

But, talk business and politics came out with a poll last night that showed, cotton with a nine percentage point lead in, in the race.

That's just a couple months after it was basically statistically tied.

So it's very and this is after just a barrage of ads.

If you if you watch college football on Saturdays, you're going to see you're going to see 2 or 3 cotton ads, on your commercial breaks, really going after shortener, especially on immigration issues.

And clearly that's, that's taking effect right now.

And this is one of those races that most national political forecasters aren't as bullish on as other Republican leading states like Kansas, like Iowa, like Texas.

Right.

Arkansas just doesn't really seem to be on their radar right now.

Yeah.

Jose.

Yeah.

Haley Schaffner got some really good press, especially when she started out.

And I think she's a really compelling story as you grew up in a town with the same name, last name as hers.

It's interesting Tom cotton hasn't.

He wouldn't do an interview with little Rock Public Radio.

He didn't show up at the debate.

But you're right.

I think that these, ads that he's running, a lot of them also try to connect her to, like, Kamala Harris or more radical left wing policies.

I think those may be really influential, especially in some rural areas.

Yeah.

George Jarrett out in the Delta, missioners, aggregate.

How much is that working?

Can it work?

I think it can work.

I've been in several meetings.

I've known Haley probably for five years, cuz I actually did stories with her about agriculture, because it was interesting to me that she was a young woman who was trying to run her Six Generations family farm.

You know, there's the I saw our poll that came out last night, and it showed Tom cotton with a nine point lead.

He had actually ran some ads disputing our polling before when it showed that she had a slight lead or within the margin of error.

And so, you know, Steve, a lot of times when I look at polls, I think they're important.

But I also look at other, other things like, Poly Market.

And right now it's about he's about an 8020 chance that Tom cotton to win the seat, which is a pretty good chance.

I also made a comment to that.

You know, if if Haley's going to win this race, that we're going to have to see some movement in these congressional districts.

And I'm not saying that these other four conservative, Republican incumbents will lose, but there should be some dramatic, especially like in the second district, there's no way that you can win a statewide race without that race being highly competitive between French Hill and Chris Jones.

And I would note that the Cook Political Report has moved that race closer to a tossup now.

And so, we'll see what the margins are on election night.

You know, here in the first district, I would say that this is probably the safest district for an incumbent in this election cycle in Congress.

So we'll see what the margin looks like that night as it affects the, you know, the governor's race and, how I sharpeners race against Tom cotton.

Yeah, yeah.

And again, Andrew, you know, money matters and Mr.

Cotton is full of it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, I think, you know, he needed another 30 million.

He could have it by noon tomorrow.

Yeah, exactly.

And you've got outside groups spending money and.

Yeah, I think, you know, he and his allies are outspending her, I think 50 or 60 to one.

That's a huge you know, that's a huge gap.

And if you'll notice in his messaging, it's very different from the governor's race, where Sanders isn't really acknowledging or mentioning her opponents.

He's mentioning her her by name.

He, supporters mentioning her by name, really going after her very specifically.

He's very much taking it very seriously as a race right now.

Yeah.

Jose.

Well, we see this every election cycle.

There's often a little hope for the Democrats that they could flip something blue.

And then towards the end, people start to come home to their original party.

So that's kind of what's happening with Haley Schaffner.

Reminds me a lot of when Clark Tucker ran against French Hill at the end, it still went the way the Republicans ended up winning.

So if I had, yeah, I would think Tom Coughlin probably prevail in this race.

Yeah.

And somebody mentioned, that Mr.

Cotton for the second consecutive, his second consecutive reelection campaign, declined to debate his Democratic opponent.

So the the question, well, the opponents, of course, made much of it or tried to make much of that, and certainly was Senator Cotton's right to decline.

The bottom line question is, who cares?

You know, it's ironic when, when does it mean does that give the Democrat any traction at all?

I think it gives her a talking point.

You know, the ironic thing about it is when cotton ran, in 2014 against Mark Pryor, one of his proposals was he challenged prior to a series of Lincoln-Douglas style debates.

You have 5 or 6 around the state, with no moderators, no panelists.

Obviously, that didn't happen.

Bare knuckles.

Yeah, but but they still debated, you know, did two televised debates and they were very, you know, pretty brutal about the debates we got.

We got very personal.

And we're seeing candidates kind of treat debates as more optional than, than they used to.

And I don't know necessarily if it helps or hurts candidates, but I don't think it's necessarily a good thing for democracy or for voters.

When you lose this chance to have one of the few unscripted moments of the campaign.

Yeah.

George.

Yeah, I agree with that.

I can tell you who's the most upset about Tom not doing the last two cycles of debates.

It's me.

Because I was a panelist.

Both of them.

But, yeah.

No, I. The thing about it is, is that I think that the only thing you can do for a candidate like Tom cotton, who's most certainly ahead in this race, it could only probably hurt him because he might, you know, say something that will go viral, you know, that, you know, I was told that he that inside his camp, they were nervous about any little thing, you know, and this is about a month ago that any little thing could actually turn this into something that was really hyper competitive.

And I'll give you an example, one ad that he was running was a shop owner, spouting this line that, she would take, you know, five illegal immigrant workers on a farm as opposed to one American worker, when actually she did say that.

But what she was doing is she was repeating something that was said to her.

But of course, and, you know, a 22nd ad, you're not going to get the context of it.

So, she didn't actually say it.

It was something that was said to her.

But that doesn't matter, because all that anybody heard and that ad, I think probably among all the ads I've seen on social media, just in my personal world, is probably the ad that has been the most damaging to her campaign.

Yeah.

Josie.

Yeah, that ads going to spread all across social media.

And as much as I wish all the people on social media would also watch the debate, sadly, I don't know if there's always going to be the same overlap there.

The candidate sounded really disappointed that Tom cotton wasn't there to debate.

I think they were able to wrap that into this message of, you know, he doesn't care about you.

He's not listening to you.

But at the end of the day, he's the one with all the money.

And so you're right.

I don't know if he does need to show up to these debates.

Yeah, well, we have all four incumbent U.S.

Representatives.

All four, Republican.

All four have opponents.

Do we?

George will start with you out in the first district.

Give us your assessment.

With, what, 18 days before voting starts?

I think, you know, out here in the first district, I mean, you know, Congressman Crawford's in a, I mean, very solid position.

Like I said before, I think of the four, congressional districts, I think his is probably the most safe for the incumbent.

Doctor Greene has ran, I think she's run a very solid, effective campaign.

I've seen her out a lot.

You know, but again, this is one of the reddest districts, probably in the United States.

Ironic, Steve, because there was a time not long ago when this was the bluest district in the entire United States.

Before Rick Crawford won this district, it had not been won by a Republican since reconstruction.

And so this was in just two years before, Rick won this district.

I think Marion Barry got like 65 or 64% of the vote.

So, this is probably been the most dramatic shift in any district in the United States in the last 20 plus years.

But right now, I mean, it's obviously Rick's race to lose.

Yeah.

And it's interesting to know for some of us are old enough to remember when it went for, two and a half decades, that district was represented by, the, representative Bill Alexander, somewhat to the left of, of either of his two, successors so far.

Anyway, let's take a look at the second district.

Andrew.

Yeah.

You know, second district.

Again, Democrats think they have a chance of flipping the second district.

You know, it's, you know, they think it's their most favorable.

We've heard this before.

This is, you know, you know, probably the third or fourth time that we've heard Democrats say they think they can flip it.

Where did triple C has put money money into it?

Yeah.

The big difference this time around, though, is that, it's more favorable district for Republicans after after redistricting.

So Democrats would really have to really over perform and really hope that Republicans don't turn out.

And that combination is a very difficult one to get.

I think that's probably going to be the closest out of the four.

It's been interesting to see.

Yeah.

French Hill's been willing to distance himself from the president on some, on some areas and gently.

Yeah.

Like, you know, like like the beef imports, issue.

He's also pointed out that, the president did not sign his bipartisan housing bill, you know, let it become law without his signature.

So there's there's some areas where he's finding ways to distance himself from the from the president.

And you're seeing that some other districts, too, like in fourth district, you saw Bruce Westerman bring up a couple areas where he disagrees with the president, including the abandoned plan to live stream the execution of the Fort Hood shooter.

So I think, you know, you see Republicans willing to, you know, have some daylight between them in the white House right now.

Yeah.

Jose.

Well, there's some blue areas in district two because it covers some of what it parts of little Rock.

Chris Jones can be a really good debater.

I and he can be a pretty good campaigner.

I've seen a lot less of him this time around than when he ran against Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

But you're right.

French Hill did distance himself from the president.

He did criticize tariffs at one point.

Is that going to break through?

Or people, Republicans that are frustrated with the tariffs, going to hear that and still go along with French Hill?

I don't know, I think a lot of people just see the letter by someone's name, and that's how they end up voting.

R3 northwestern.

Well that covers a lot of Arkansas IR3.

Yeah.

And you know Northwest Arkansas, you've got you know Steve Steve Womack running again.

You know this this time around.

He he did not have the, you know, really tight primary challenge that he had last time.

Northwest is one of those areas where Democrats believe it's going to be competitive at some point.

You know, just given the changing demographics there, the, inward migration, I'm not sure if that's going to really going to be reflected in the race this time around.

He's running against Rob.

Rob, Roy Ayers, who's a Democrat.

And but it does not seem to be getting kind of the same level of attention, the same level of investment that you're seeing in second district, which is really where national Democrats are really putting their focus right now.

Yeah.

You're watching that, George, out in the, Delta.

You're watching, Benton, Washington, etcetera, etcetera.

Oh, you know I do, Steve.

I can't get enough of this.

I will say something that I did notice, coming down to the station, this week, you know, because I don't make it into central Arkansas as much as I used to, or especially during the election cycle.

But the number of billboards attacking French Hill was astounding to me.

I mean, they were everywhere.

Everywhere I looked, I saw a billboard going after him.

So, I kind of, I guess I agree with Andrew.

You know, or not agree, but I mean, it's just it's just a fact.

Democrats, you know, they keep looking towards Northwest Arkansas, just hoping and praying and waiting.

And we always keep hearing that they're going to break through.

Eventually they will break through.

I mean, I'll get a good example of that is, you know, Democrats look toward the state of Virginia for years, and had voted for 40 straight years for Republican candidates in the presidential election.

And finally, in 2008, the suburbs around Washington, DC finally just overwhelm the rest of that red state.

And so eventually that those three big cities up in northwest Arkansas could very well turn towards the Democrats, and that might give them some more hope into the future.

Well, let's hit a R for that.

South Oregon oil south.

And these districts are active really interestingly shaped some time.

But Jose south Arkansas this that one is the James Russell versus Western.

Yeah.

Yeah that was an interesting debate.

One of my favorite questions was when they asked, where do you differ with your party?

In Russell decided to support more FCC regulations on reporters, which I was very concerned about.

But that debate, that was a fun one to watch.

And they both were like a little lukewarm on Chris is the president and a little mixed.

It was both seemed like pretty moderate candidates.

But at the end of it, at Western, it's probably gonna eke out a win there, but easily.

And this you saw it come up at different points during these series of eight ET.

And there are Arkansas TV debates and that's cultural issues.

Less than perhaps some of us might have expected.

So the cultural issues and George will start with you, hot button cultural issues, do they count as much as they did given the economy?

No they don't.

They work when the economy is good, you know?

I was kind of reminded about, you know, like when the initial red wave hit in 2010, when Obama got wiped out, you know, it was based on Obamacare.

They ran against Obamacare.

Every candidate from school board all the way up to US Senate, we're running against Obamacare.

And I noticed that, Rick.

And when he was giving an answer during his debate, he didn't mention Obamacare again, because it's just in the DNA.

You know, that's how he won the first time around.

But no, these culture war issues are not I'm not seeing any of this, you know, the trans athlete issues, all that kind of stuff.

I'm not seeing any of that anywhere now.

And people are talking.

People are talking about how much it cost to put gas in their car.

Yeah.

I mean, that's the bottom line.

That's what people are talking about.

Farmers are talking about how much these input costs have just spiraled out of control.

And there's no there's seemingly no will by the federal government to do anything about it.

You know, when people are talking about, I'll say this, we were talking earlier about Tom cotton not showing up for debate.

I had several people mentioned to me who have voted for him twice, who were really mad that he didn't show up.

And they're like, why wouldn't he come back to debate his opponent?

And I'm like, well, I mean, it speaks for itself.

I'm not I can't, I don't know.

I haven't talked to Tom about this issue.

So I don't know.

So know these culture issue.

I don't think they're going to be much of a factor in this race.

Yeah.

Jose, there was a mention periodically of boys and girls sports and a couple of things.

Yeah.

Sarah Sanders did run an ad that talked about, boys, girls sports.

I think a lot of Republicans really think that's a good social issue for them, and they want to bring it up going into the midterms.

But I also do think these social issues are kind of luxuries for a better economic time.

Sarah Huckabee was touting a law that was actually passed under Hutchinson's administration that she was sort of taking credit for in this interesting way.

But part of this is also just the reporters, I think did a good job asking pretty substantive questions.

So social issues did not come up a ton any.

Back to the debates.

Yeah.

Andrew.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think they I think the governor is probably the person who's probably, you know, pushed, cultural issues the most in, in the race.

You know, we have her ad about transgender athletes.

You know, you see her kind of echoing some, some national rhetoric as well to what you're talking about, you know, national Democratic figures.

You see her talking about, Medicaid work requirements.

That was probably the most interesting ad, mainly because she got backlash from the right.

Because because of that ad.

Because it because of the, actor portraying a medicaid recipient.

And so that was that was kind of one of the ironic parts of it is, you know, she was, you know, being accused of going woke, even though she's someone who's really been kind of kind of a culture warrior on, on a lot of things right now.

But yeah, I think when you look at the polling generally, that's not an issue that's, resonating as as much as it did even just two years ago in the presidential race.

Yeah.

And finally this let's look forward to January, if we can.

We have essentially we're going to have ideologically anyway, or certainly by party that is essentially the same legislature we've got by my party anyways, we've got right now.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, I think, you know, the question would be, if you can, can they break a supermajority in the house?

I'm not sure.

I'm not sure if they can.

But you're looking ahead to next year session.

You've got some really heavy issues already coming up.

Starting with future of state's, hybrid Medicaid expansion, which, as anyone knows, was difficult to get past in the first place.

So trying to come up with a replacement model is going to be the even bigger task.

And that's affecting hundreds of thousands of people.

Yeah.

You look at what's happening with data centers, I think there's going to be a lot more discussion about that, about what restrictions there should or shouldn't be.

And again, prisons, that's still an unresolved issue with Franklin County Prison on hold or life support, whatever you want to call it.

And it's you've got, you know, just that kind of a massive agenda for the session months beforehand, no matter what happens with the election.

Yeah.

And to, Miss Sanders was not successful in her endorsements any way for the Senate.

So that could alter.

Is it not fair to assume that that could mean a bumpy ride for her?

Yeah, I think so.

I think you've seen that there.

Members of legislature, members of her own party who are willing to push back against her a little bit more.

Now, the question is, if she wins reelection by a very wide margin, does does that give her a political capital?

And does that tamp some of that down?

And so that's going to be one of the things we're kind of watching for as well.

But also the fact that she'll be she'll be a lame, lame duck.

Yeah, a lame duck.

And, you know, does that affect it as well, too, especially if you've got some legislators, some of whom have have eyes on her office, some some day or some other higher office, who want to really make a name for themselves or really, stand up on issues that are important to them.

They may be willing to step out.

More on that.

Yeah.

Josie.

Well, that prison in Charleston was something she was really passionate about, and that project's not going for it, probably because of the pretty intense backlash from locals.

It'll be interesting to see as we go into this next legislative session.

If she does have a few more stumbles like that.

There are very few real nail biter races in the legislature.

I'm really interested in district 70, which is the suburbs of little Rock.

We've got Beau Renshaw against Alex Holliday, who's the Democratic incumbent, and that is a race that often comes down to just a couple votes.

So there's there's very few real races like that that actually have a few, nail biter margins.

Yeah.

And there are, of course, some fissures in the Republican conference, too, in the Senate, to put it mildly.

Georgia got the last word on this.

Yeah.

I think that, the governor, I expect her to be reelected.

And when she is, I, she probably will have a very diminished power base.

You know, during her first term, she wasn't able to get that prison project rammed through, you know, and any any incumbent who has no chance of being on the ballot again, they're automatically diminished.

I mean, I know that, it doesn't seem that way because, you know, President Trump has even seemed to wield so much power on the national level when it comes to, candidates and, and other people in this party trying to get rid of them and get things done.

But if you really if you really read the tea leaves, he hasn't been super successful in that.

I mean, that, James Talarico, race with Ken Paxton in Texas is a prime example.

If if John Cornyn was on the ballot, you know, that would be a pretty safe seat for Republicans right now, it would seem.

But because he decided to endorse Ken Paxton, who is universally regarded as the worst candidate among all of the Senate candidates who are running this cycle.

So that that effect that Trump has on elections is not the same effect that most other politicians, including our governor, has.

And so I imagine that she's probably going if she wants to get some things done in her second term, she's probably going to be making some compromises.

Yeah.

Got to end of that because we're out of time.

George and Josie and Andrew, thanks for coming on board.

Come back soon and we'll take a break and come back with a view from Washington.

And we are back in the Washington game.

Arkansas has a lot on the line come Election Day.

A change of party control in either chamber or both could cost the state some important chairmanships for the near term, though there is a lame duck session to cope with, and there's a lot riding on that as well.

We're joined now by Alex Thomas, Washington correspondent of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Alex, thanks for coming aboard.

We hope you're getting some rain up there, because Arkansas could sure use some.

It actually is raining here a little bit today in D.C., so rain has been blessing us here in Northern Virginia.

But at the same time, though, the biggest thing is cooler temperatures are coming off this.

Go on.

You were able to watch the four, congressional debates remotely, as it were, here on Arkansas TV.

Any any thought, was there a consistency in there that you could you could, comment on?

I will say I was impressed with a couple of debates.

The third district debate stands out among those four.

I thought Rob Pryor, the Democrat in that race, and Steve Womack, the Republican, did a good job painting themselves as what they wanted voters to perceive themself as Steve Womack being the incumbent.

You want to paint himself as a guy who has experience but still has ties to the local area.

And Rob Brier see paint himself as the opposite of Steve Womack, a challenger who's willing to push back against the status quo.

So I was impressed with that debate.

I was actually surprised that in the first district debate, the anti-Semitic charges against Steve Parsons, was it a big issue after that debate?

I thought it was going to get a lot more attention online, but apparently that was glossed over by a lot of people.

But it's worth if you have not watched the debates, going back and watching all four or the district that you live in.

Well, it's going back to the to the northwest debates, the third district debate.

It seemed to some observers that it, it was struck a blow for civility.

You know, that third district debate.

I really think, you know, Rob Pryor, see, put himself out there and went after Steve Womack throughout that debate, again, trying to contrast himself from the congressman.

And Steve Womack didn't really punch back.

He made one remark about Rob, and that was kind of it.

It wasn't even that big of a blow.

But the thing that I think Womack excelled at was at the very end when he talked about both Ricky and Bobby Wilson, libertarian, and he said, you know, I kind of like these guys.

They're good guys.

And I think that Steve Womack's tone, he's going to take his road and say, this is what I've done for Northwest Arkansas.

Look at the money I've put into the district.

And if Rob Brier wants to go after me, go ahead.

I have my own record I can stand on.

Well, it's suggested that the demographics are very much on Mr.

Womack side.

Absolutely.

You know, that district has been the Republican district in Arkansas going back not just a decade, but decades.

And so Steve Womack is in a safe Republican district, not saying that Rob Pryor will lose on Election Day.

There's always a shot.

But at the same time, though, Steve Womack is feeling a bit more comfortable than someone like French Hill, whose race has gone a little bit towards Chris Jones's direction, or even some of these battleground districts across the country.

Yeah.

And your reference to, let's go to the first district for a moment.

Your reference to, Mr.

Crawford, the incumbent.

Mr.

Crawford's two references, accusations of anti-Semitism directed against the, the libertarian candidate, which took some people by surprise.

It seemed to be, as one person put it, a bit of overkill.

Right.

So when you go back and watch that debate, Steve Parsons wasn't attacking people of the Jewish faith.

He wasn't attacking anybody who supports Israel.

But he has concerns about the United States relationship with Israel, especially now that we are entering a new month with the Iran war.

And so it was a policy disagreement.

But the way that Representative Crawford took it, he took it as an attack on the Jewish people, an attack on the Jewish faith.

And it just seemed out of place.

It seemed that it was not differentiating the two arguments.

And Steve Parsons tried to counter that.

But at the same time, those anti-Semitic charges really took a lot of attention from other policy issues.

And even Doctor Greene's points throughout that debate, put Arkansas, if you can, into context in the national race.

You know, obviously the Senate is thought to be, up for grabs, the House certainly up for, for grabs.

Change in party composition, party control on both houses, at a minimum, it would seem would seem possible.

Arkansas's place in the Republican ranks would seem to be, at this point anyway, fairly secure.

Right.

So when you're looking at the first district, the third district and the fourth district, I would say those are safe districts where the incumbents are more than likely going to win.

That second district is, you know, favor towards French Hill.

But Chris Jones has a lot of momentum on his side.

He has House Democrats putting money and resources into that race.

And then you have the U.S.

Senate race right now.

Tom Cotton has the financial advantage over Haley Schaffner.

He obviously has the ad space over Haley Schaffner.

I mean, goodness gracious, all the Arkansans I talked to are getting a little bit tired of seeing Tom cotton face on TV just because of the amount of ads that are running right now across the natural state.

But helicopter does have some momentum on her side.

On Thursday night, she had had a rally in Fayetteville getting 800 people to attend that event.

She's now starting to run ads, and she actually had a good fundraising quarter.

She has $1.4 million cash on hand, so not a bad way to enter this final stretch of the election.

But at the same time, in football terms, this would be like Texas against Georgia Southern.

Tom cotton, he's Texas, he has nil resources.

He has the power and helicopter.

She's Georgia Southern.

But that doesn't mean that Georgia Southern has it pulled off upsets before.

And of course I'm trying to not talk about Arkansas teams because we want to keep this as neutral as we can.

So no offense to Arkansas State or UGA.

Yeah.

And Mr.

Cotton would seem to be, sufficiently confident that, as we talked about earlier on the broadcast, this is the second consecutive, reelection bid in which he has declined to, to debate his opponent.

It's not just that.

It's the fact that the one debate he did agree to that Salem Media debate.

It's not going to happen.

Salem Media is a media organization that is friendly to cotton.

They have Christian and conservative programing and how shopper even agreed to that debate.

But there were logistical problems, and there was no way that debate could happen before Election Day.

And when you look at the headlines, whether it be from the Democrat Gazette or the Arkansas Advocate or other Arkansas news organizations, the two headlines that stick out about the debates with us and it is number one, Tom cotton skipped his debate.

And number two, Tom cotton will not appear on the debate stage this fall.

Yeah, but is that is that much of an issue in the minds of, of of voters, not only in Arkansas but anywhere else, but particularly here?

I don't I don't think so.

I think the fact that Tom cotton does have substantial resources, and he's putting those resources into TV advertisements, I think that benefits him.

But you also have to look at superPACs.

Steve, there's one superPAC in particular, America, one that is conservative.

They have been running ads against Schaffner throughout the calendar year.

In fact, since late September, they have dumped $1.9 million into advertisements attacking helicopter.

Helicopter doesn't have that kind of money.

She doesn't have that kind of resources.

She does have legwork.

She does have people on her team that can go out across the state and advocate on her behalf, but it's really hard to compete with screen time in the modern day.

Yeah, back to R-2.

If we get the Central Arkansas second Congressional District, the Democratic nominee in the second district has for several years has always been a key target of the Democrats in taking out Mr.

Hill.

But on election night, the numbers have gone, consistently.

Rewarded Mr.

Hill with, with big majorities, particularly after the last redistricting.

And, and the enormous majorities that the Republican nominee, Mr.

Hill, has been able to rack up in the other counties of the district, they've tended to just completely overshadow Pulaski.

Right.

I mean, the thing that I noticed in that debate the other day with French Hill and Chris Jones was Congressman Hill focused a lot on what he's done for Central Arkansas.

When you look at the housing bill, when you look at his work addressing public housing programs, he really didn't focus a lot on his other congressional assignments, you know, leading the House Financial Services Committee, working on cryptocurrencies.

He really honed in on local issues.

And so that helps him.

That helps him because he can sit here and go, look what I did.

Look what I did in Pulaski County, look what I did in Conway.

And that's a benefit for him.

Now, again, like you mentioned, Chris Jones does face a problem because Pulaski County was split in the last redistricting.

But Chris Jones household name, people know him.

He's a good campaign person.

When you go out on the campaign trail, he knows how to energize a group.

That's something that French Hill is going to have to combat onto the congressional agenda.

We got a lame duck session coming up, and it's a pretty full agenda.

If you look at the, and the, the, the significance of of that agenda, first of all, spending.

Right.

We have to prevent a government shutdown from happening in December.

That may be item number one, but we have five weeks of legislative business.

And there is a ton to do, because if you don't get that done before the holidays, before Congress leaves Capitol Hill, you have to hit the restart button come January 1st.

Meaning if you don't pass a bill, guess what?

You have to start all over in the new Congress.

So if you want to get is cryptocurrency regulation bill done?

If Bruce Westerman wants to get his permitting bill done, if both chambers want to get that cop college sports denial bill done, they have to really push it and get it done in that five week period.

And there are complicating this thing.

It would seem from afar, there are reports now of a potential challenge to the speaker.

And that probably won't make legislative business any easier.

Well, Mike Johnson has had to deal with headwinds throughout his time being speaker.

And keep in mind, he didn't start being Speaker in January.

As tradition dictates, he became speaker in October of 23 after multiple rounds of failed speakership votes.

And so if you're Mike Johnson right now and you do not have the House majority come November 4th, you are sitting here going, oh my goodness, what can I do over the next five weeks?

What can I do to submit my legacy?

Because like you said, there are going to be challenges to that.

Ohio's Jim Jordan, his name is popped up as a potential new Republican leader.

We are going to have to see what shakes down come November 4th and into the new year.

Well, and and and what we've been hearing all week long.

Farm bill.

We need a farm bill.

I've heard we need a farm bill for the last four years.

Yeah.

And that's the problem, is that the Senate and the House, they've worked on farm bill proposals.

They put things together, they've had votes, but they haven't been able to finalize one comprehensive bill.

Now, keep in mind here, Steve, that one big beautiful bill act, it raised reference prices have benefited farmers.

They appreciated that.

But they also realize that those rural development programs and other programs that are in a farm bill, those need to be updated for the first time since 2018.

And the Senate and House are going to have to agree on this.

It needs to be a bipartisan effort.

You cannot pass legislation in the current Congress with 51 votes.

You need 60.

You need Democrats in the Senate to join along with Republicans.

And that's what John Boozman, who leads the Senate Agriculture Committee, that's what he's going to have to work on when Congress returns in November.

What is the snag, Alex?

What is or is there a snag, or are there multiple issues?

I would say the number one snag right now involves snap in the one big beautiful Bill act.

What happened was they put more of the cost share burden onto states.

They raised the amount of administrative costs the states will have to pay.

And they also, for the first time, called on states to cover benefit cost.

That's going to go into effect.

Those benefit cost will go into effect next year.

But what Democrats want is a two year delay.

They want to say, look, we want to give states more time.

We think that that one year delay is not going to be enough.

And John Bozeman has come back and said, we can't do two years.

Why do we try one?

Why don't we try to reduce pushing it back to October of 28?

And Democrats aren't willing to budge from their positions, and John Bozeman and Senate Republicans are not willing to budge from their positions.

And that's the big struggle right now, is who is going to play chicken here, and who's going to lose chicken and try to get a farm bill done before the holidays.

All right.

What in terms of control, party control of of either chamber, we've got some chairmanships that are that are at stake here.

Right.

You have French Hill who's on financial services.

If Democrats flip the chamber, he would likely become ranking member Rick Crawford, who leads House intelligence.

He would likely become ranking member.

Bruce Westerman is an interesting case because he's not going to become ranking member, at least right now.

Right now, the House Republican Conference has a rule where you can only be the top Republican in your committee for three terms.

He was ranking member for term, and he's been chair now for two terms.

So does he want to get a waiver and try to stay, being the top Republican on that committee, being the ranking member, or does he want to just put his hands up and say, hey, I had a great time, good leadership experience, but I'm going to go to another committee and really work for my district in that panel.

That's something we're going to have to watch come November 4th, see what his plans are.

And also, what does Steve Womack do if you lose somebody and a top appropriations subcommittee, does he move from the Transportation and Housing subcommittee to a new subcommittee?

He's had his eyes on defense.

But at the same time, I don't think he's willing to bug a fellow Republican to get that top spot.

Yeah.

And Mr.

Cotton, in addition to his chairmanship on the Senate side, he's also a senior member of the of the the leadership in the upper chamber.

That's right.

He's the number three Republican among the Senate Republicans.

And that has given him some leverage when it comes to legislation and policy discussions.

I talked to him about that for our Senate preview coverage, and he is actually kind of surprised in the fact that he's been able to do all of this just during this Congress.

He had a hand in crafting the one big Beautiful Bill act.

He literally signed the bill because Chuck Grassley was unavailable that day.

Chuck Grassley is usually the person because of the seniority, the person responsible to sign legislation and send it to the white House.

So Tom cotton has had a major role in getting legislation through the Senate in this Congress.

But the problem is health folks do not like the Senate.

The House thinks the Senate has not moved fast enough.

What can Tom cotton do now that he has some seniority, if he does win reelection, to move that process forward and become a true congressional leader on Capitol Hill, got into there.

Alex Thomas, because we are out of time.

Thanks very much for yours.

Yes, sir.

Thank you Steve, come back soon.

And that does it for us for this week.

As always, thank you for watching and see you next time.