For decades, beginning in 1874, Arkansas was a one-party state. And that party was the Democratic party. Governor, state assembly, land commissioner, U.S. Senate… nearly every elected official in the state was a Democrat.
“There’s one exception in the state of Arkansas, beginning in the 1960s.”
That’s John C. Davis, the executive director of the David and Barbara Pryor Center for Arkansas Oral and Visual History and the author of From Blue to Red: the rise of the GOP in Arkansas.
“And that is the third congressional district, which we now think of as northwest Arkansas which was previously more of western Arkansas.”
In 1966, the third congressional district of Arkansas elected its first Republican member of congress since 1872. Since that 1966 election, the district has seen Walmart incorporated, J.B. Hunt and Tyson become Fortune 500 companies, and northwest Arkansas grow so much that the district boundaries shrunk around it.
“But even with all those changes in the state over the decades,” Davis said, “the third [district] has since 1966 been a Republican-held congressional seat. Which today is not unusual, all four of our House seats in Arkansas are held by Republicans. But up until really, quite recently, the third being consistently Republican and going Republican that long ago and an otherwise very Democratic, Solid South state was noteworthy.”
John Paul Hammerschmidt was a WWII veteran, a businessman, and had built some political clout across the state. He went on to serve thirteen terms in the House, retiring in 1993.
“His legacy is one of being someone who works across party lines,” Davis said. “He wass strongly supported and and thought very highly among his Republican peers, of course. I mean, he is a partisan. But he works largely throughout his career with Democrats who were his congressional compatriots, if you will, out of Arkansas. We think of the four congressional districts we've had now for several, several decades. Overwhelmingly over that time period of his career, he was working with Democrats in the state.”
Tim Hutchinson who went on to be a U.S. Senator, his brother and former Governor Asa, and now U.S. Senator John Boozman are the Republicans that followed Hammerschmidt in the seat. Steve Womack has served as Congressman since his election in 2010, he said the work of Hammerschmidt that he patterns himself after most is his work with his constituents.
“John Paul said and reminded me of this when I got elected, that when the election is over, there are no longer Republicans and Democrats in the third district, they’re constituents,” Womack said. “And so you have to take care of them. Now, obviously, I can't appease both sides with every vote I take. There are those that will like it in those that will not like it, depending on what the subject matter is. But you treat them all with respect and dignity and do your very best to represent their views.”
In the last 30 elections in the third congressional district, just three of those have had a margin of less than ten points: 1992 with Tim Hutchinson, 1974 when Hammerschmidt beat Bill Clinton by less than four points, and 1966, when Hammerschmidt first won the seat. Three of the last six races did not even have a Democratic opponent.
Caitlin Draper is running for the Democratic ticket this November, and she said they have an uphill battle.
“But this district is not the same district as it was in 1966,” Draper said. “It's not the same district as it was in 2020. This district has changed. We’re now the smallest congressional district in the state. We are the most populated, right? Which makes us the smallest geographically. And it's changing. It's flipping. Benton County is the most blue-swinging county in the state. Washington County flipped blue for Chris Jones back in 2022. So, it's happening. Change is happening, it's here. And even folks nationally are starting to pay attention to this race and starting to see that this is one that could be red to blue.”
Draper said she has never run for office before, she refers to herself as “just a social worker.” But she said the overturning of Roe v. Wade drove her to do so. She has been diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome, or PCOS, and has dealt with infertility issues because of it.
“My husband and I started on this IVF journey, and I finally got pregnant in March of this year,” she said. “We had a successful transfer. And it kind of went south real quick. So my doctor said, ‘Your HCG levels,’ which are the pregnancy levels, ‘are going up and down and this really could be an ectopic pregnancy.’ But it was so early. It was like right before six weeks. They couldn't really visualize anything on ultrasound. My doctor is out of state. And I know firsthand from working in the emergency room and actually seeing a woman die from an ectopic pregnancy that ruptured that it's very dangerous. And so, you tell me it's ectopic, I'm a little scared. And I asked my doctor, ‘Well if I go to the emergency room presenting with symptoms of this ectopic pregnancy, am I going to be okay?’ And her answer genuinely was, ‘I don't know, you might want to have a plan to get out of there and to go somewhere safe.’ That terrified me. And I love my medical teams the best. And I can get out of the state. But what about the women in our district that can't?”
Congressman Womack has served in a Republican majority Congress for 10 of his 14 years in office, but he said he works with members of congress that he might disagree with.
“Not just with Democrats,” he said, “but with Republicans with whom I might disagree or disagree with me. And there are groups on both sides of it. I recognize that. And we could get down in the weeds if we needed to. But on the Democrat side, I disagree with their policies. And I don't think socialism is the right answer for this country, which is where that party is trying to take us.”
When asked if he can provide examples of what he means when he says socialism, Womack said big government.
“Let's make it simple,” Womack said. “More taxes, to finance bigger government to control more of our everyday lives. I think Americans are quite capable of making smart decisions on their own without the need of this big, all intrusive government. So, more regulations, more of our tax money going to support a lot of this stuff, giving things away, kind of shackling people, if you will, to government programs that suppress their ability to go out and do things on their own, make their own way, have the self-esteem, and build wealth and go be very successful. When big government programs are in play, it suppresses, I think, the desire on a lot of people, because hey, the government's going to take care of me. I don't have to take care of me.”
When asked how she responds when someone views her politics and policies as socialism, Draper answers with a question.
“I would say have you met anyone living off of the government and do you think that's a glamorous life? My older sister Shelly has Spina Bifida, so she's been a wheelchair user her entire life. She's never been able to walk. Her husband also has Spina Bifida. I will tell you from watching my sister living off of social security, off of disability is incredibly difficult, and it's a system that's meant to keep you poor. It's a system that's meant to keep you oppressed.
“When she tries to get a job, she might make a little bit more, and so her social security is dropped, which is normal, but her medical expenses are so expensive that she can't keep up with it then. It puts her in a spot where she has to choose, well, my power wheelchair went out, do I pay $40,000 for a new one, or do I stop working and let my Medicaid do its thing? It's not right, and it shouldn't be that way. So, no, I think it's not fun at all to live off of the government, but I think that we, as a government, have a responsibility to our people to ensure that they are living in a way that is healthy and allows them to pursue their life, liberty, and happiness.”
Womack said he has strong disagreements with the Democratic Party, “but I don't hate them. I Work with them. I call it missionary work. I'm trying to bring them to my way of thinking. So, but you can't do that if you're if you're always dealing in angst, if you just always add odds with each other. I’ve got great friends on the other side of the aisle, I just happened to disagree.
“On the on the right, on the Republican side,” Womack continues, “I've got disagreement with many of the more hardcore extreme Republicans in our party because I don't think they're ever going to be successful. It's divided government, you're probably going to have to find bipartisan solutions and you can't just dig in your heels and say it's my way or the highway because that's what causes government shutdowns and big omnibus packages and continuing resolutions and those kinds of things. So, it happens on both sides. I think you've got to get somewhere in the middle and try to find what works for our country.”
When it comes to legacy, Congressman Womack says he hopes people recognize that he showed up for work every day and has never missed a vote, and that he has always been transparent on his stance. But he also hopes, much like John Paul Hammerschmidt, that people remember him for being accessible to his constituents.
“That when they had a problem with Social Security or VA or any one of the number of agencies that my team was responsive and sought relief for them and very successful in those cases,” he said. “[I hope] that I've never disappointed them. That you never had to see my mug or a headline about me on the front page above the fold doing something that would embarrass my constituents. I just couldn't do that. And I'm proud of the fact that every day I go to Washington, I've got the name tags, if you will, of every constituent that I represent in full view.”
Draper said she hopes she has inspired people to get involved. “Arkansas has, if not the lowest, one of the lowest rates of civic engagement in the country. I hope that we inspire people to get out, to volunteer for whatever it is you believe in. I hope that we continue to build the infrastructure that Democrats need to continue good campaign work in this state. So yeah, I feel really good about it. And I think you're going to see that this seat is going to flip. If it's not in this cycle, it's coming.”
But how long will this seat continue to be Republican? 80 years? 100? Davis said he doesn’t know what will happen to this district in 20 or 30 years.
“I think it continues to grow as the rest of the state probably continues to shrink or hold its own,” he said. “So, I could see a situation and a generation or two where the district is very small and compact but holding a third of the state's population. I don't know what happens there. I don't know what happens when you have the demographic change that inevitably occurs when you have a lot of folks moving in not only from the state up to northwest Arkansas, but from out of the state into Northwest Arkansas. So, it's really hard, I think, to predict those sorts of electoral outcomes. But what we can look at today is see that the state of Arkansas was democratic for well over a century. So, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that the third congressional district could remain Republican for a century.”
Election Day in November 5. You can find more information about registering to vote in your state here.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. The authoritative record of KUAF programming is the audio record.
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