Arkansas Democrats In The Wilderness
A little over a decade ago, Democrats held most of the power in Arkansas. But that is no longer the case. By 2014, Republicans had supermajorities in the state legislature, and they now hold all major statewide and federal offices. That’s left the state’s Democratic party decimated, only fielding candidates in local and state races where they have a shot.
But some Democratic leaders in the state are looking for ways to rebuild their party, and one effort borrows heavily from Stacey Abrams’s playbook in Georgia. A long-time state Democratic leader, state Senator Joyce Elliott, retired after serving 20 years in the state legislature. Preparing for her exit, she helped launch a new nonprofit in December called Get Loud Arkansas, an organization focused on registering new voters, turning them out in higher numbers, and otherwise increasing civic engagement. In 2020, Arkansas ranked last in voter registration and voter turnout, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
While this effort is nonpartisan, Arkansas’s history of disenfranchising Black voters means efforts to expand the electorate might have the same effect that it had in Georgia — more voters at the polls meant turning the state blue in 2020. There are other similar efforts, too, like Fight Forward, which is also registering and educating voters and trying to ensure the right to vote. The efforts of these organizations might be enhanced by a high-profile Democrat running for governor: Chris Jones, a nuclear physicist and ordained minister, returned to the state to run as a Democrat and is a favorite to win in the primary.
But Arkansas’s fundamental demographics are so different from Georgia’s that engaging more voters in the process and ensuring their right to vote might not make a difference in the end result. Nearly a third of Georgians are Black, compared with only 16 percent of Arkansans. Moreover, Atlanta is more than twice the size of Little Rock, Arkansas’s largest city, leaving the state without many of the urban liberals and suburban swing voters who joined Georgia’s Democratic coalition in 2020. Finally, nearly 80 percent of Arkansas is white and nearly 80 percent identifies as Christian — with 46 percent identifying as evangelical Christian — which means that, demographically, much of the state is solidly in the Republican camp.
But Elliott has said she’s in it for the long-haul, and sees Get Loud Arkansas as a ten-year project. In the meantime, in many areas, the winners of tonight’s Republican primaries will be virtually guaranteed a victory in their local and statewide races come November.