Matthew Moore: Nov. 15, the candidate filing period closed in the state of Arkansas at noon without any major surprises. Joining me this morning over the phone is Roby Brock from Talk Business and Politics who’s been covering this. Roby, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.
Roby Brock: Hey, thanks for having me, Matthew.
Moore: So let’s talk first and foremost about, we’ve got five different federal delegation elections that are happening in November of 2026. We’ve got all four of the House districts and one Senate race. We’re seeing opponents in all five of those races this election cycle.
Brock: It is. The premier race will be the U.S. Senate race. Senator Tom Cotton running for reelection this year. He’s got two primary challengers, which is kind of interesting because he’s in Senate leadership. He’s pretty aligned with President Trump, and he’s drawn two kind of unknown opponents in his primary that we’ll just have to see what their rationale for running is, because there’s not a pretty good argument for them right now.
And there’s two Democrats who’ll be battling it out for the Democratic nomination. Farmer Hallie Shoffner of Newport and Lewisville Mayor Ethan Dunbar on the Democrat side. So that one will be, I think, an interesting race as well. I think you got to kind of give Hallie Shoffner a little bit of the upper hand right now. She’s been out there a little longer. She’s raised more money. She seems to have more visibility. So that one will be a really big race to watch because of the messaging in that race. Hallie Shoffner tapping into farmers and their discontent in rural Arkansas over lack of a farm bill. Senator Cotton has voted against two farm bills in his career. This is still a very Republican state overall, so we’ll just see if she makes some headway for a Democrat if she turns out to be the nominee.
And then the four House races that you mentioned. I think French Hill is the only one facing a Republican primary challenge. And he’s facing kind of a political unknown in that primary. But interesting to me that Steve Womack has escaped a primary. He had one last time. It was a competitive race in that primary last time. He does not have a primary opponent this time around. Neither does Bruce Westerman or Rick Crawford. But they do all have Democratic potential opponents in the fall. So we’ll see where the mood of the—if the mood of the country that we saw last Tuesday is reflected in the mood of Arkansas. Those races could be really, really interesting.
Moore: As we look at the state level here, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders filed for reelection. She will have some opponents on the Democratic side, but a lot of other constitutional offices on the state level are uncontested.
Brock: Mhm. Yeah, that was kind of an interesting development too. And I’ll tell you a little bit of a reason why is the way that the majority party is defined in the state of Arkansas is who has control of the seven constitutional offices. So for Republicans or Democrats, you have to have officeholders in at least four of the seven constitutional offices to be considered the majority party. That’s where your makeup for all the county election commissions are two to one for the majority party. So it’s kind of a really big deal.
Democrats only filed candidates in two of the seven races. So there’s governor’s competition and there’s secretary of state competition. So regardless of the outcomes of the general election, the Republican Party will maintain its majority party status even if Democrats were to win both of those seats. So that’s interesting.
I do think that the governor’s race will be another high-profile race like the U.S. Senate race to watch this coming cycle. Governor Sanders has a lot of money in the bank. She’s got some general goodwill. She’s got President Trump’s endorsement. You’re going to have state Senator Fred Love, who’s term-limited, will be running for the Democratic nomination against Supha Mays. It’s a very difficult name to pronounce, but I’ve done it a few times. She’s also running for the Democratic nomination. She ran four years ago. Did not fare very well. But anyhow, those will be—one of those two will be your Democratic nominee against Sarah Sanders. It’ll be interesting to see what they do to contrast their message versus the incumbent governor.
Moore: We’re also going to see statewide on our ballots two contests for Arkansas Supreme Court. This was, in a recent election cycle, a very highly contested race, especially in light of a potential constitutional amendment around abortion. Do you imagine that the 2026 ballot with the Supreme Court races will be as interesting or as contested?
Brock: I don’t think that they will be. First of all, in one of the positions you’ve got Justice Cody Hiland. He was appointed to the position he’s in, so he can’t run for the seat, which is open this year. But he’s running for the other open seat and he’s unopposed. So he’s going to definitely win that race because there is no other competition.
Nick Bronni was also appointed by Governor Sarah Sanders to an open position on the Arkansas Supreme Court, and he can’t run for the seat he’s been appointed to. So he’s running for the seat that Cody Hiland was appointed to. It’s musical chairs at the Arkansas Supreme Court, Matthew. But he did draw an opponent on the last day from John Adams, who, gosh, about 15 years ago ran for the Democratic nomination for Congress in the 2nd District in central Arkansas. He did not win that race, but he had a good showing. Again, that was 15 years ago. I think he’s also run for the state House in a seat in the Little Rock area and did not win. He’s an interesting guy. He’s a very cerebral guy. He’s a very nice guy.
Well, it’s just very difficult to win a race for the Arkansas Supreme Court if you don’t have ‘judge’ or ‘justice’ in front of your name. That is a huge, overwhelming competitive advantage. And both Justice Cody Hiland and Justice Nick Bronni will have those titles as people walk into the booth. I just think that makes them overwhelming favorites.
Moore: Anything we miss? Anything surprising or maybe not surprising that sticks out to you.
Brock: Surprising that there were a lot of Democrats that filed in the last few days. There’s a little bit more competition than I expected. And maybe some of that had to do with the elections that we saw roughly a week ago, where there seems to be a national mood swing away from the Republicans that might have encouraged a few more Democrats to get into the races there at the state House level. So for the House and for the state Senate, there are some really interesting matchups in those races. They’re very hyperlocal. I don’t think we have time to dive into them all right now, but you’ll have a lot of interest locally in probably six to eight House and Senate races, maybe a little bit more than that. I’ll raise that to a dozen or something like that. But there’ll be some really competitive races and some really interesting ones.
I don’t know if they’ll tell us much about the mood of the electorate, but they may help us understand how close the Democrats may be to breaking the Republican supermajorities in the legislature. I still think it’s a long shot for them to do that in this next election cycle. But there is the possibility with the number of candidates that they filed that that could happen.
Moore: You can find an entire list of the election matchups we’ll see in 2026 when you go to Talk Business. Thank you, as always, for your time. We appreciate it.
Brock: You bet, Matthew. And that list is painstakingly accurate. I spent hours, hours yesterday making sure that everything synced up. So it should be about as accurate as you can find anywhere. Thanks for having me.
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