Matthew Moore: We start this Wednesday edition of Ozarks at Large, the day after the primary and nonpartisan elections that took place yesterday, with our friend in Little Rock, editor in chief of the Arkansas Advocate, Andrew DeMillo. Andrew, you told me right before we hit record that you weren't going to tell me how many shots of espresso are in that iced beverage of yours, but it's probably fair to say it's more than usual.
Andrew DeMillo: Yeah, somewhere between one and 100 right now.
Moore: Well, you and your team did excellent coverage of elections across the state. You can find that at ArkansasAdvocate.com. We're going to dig into some of the coverage you guys did and talk about some of the results from last night's election. Let's start with something that all Arkansans saw on their ballot. That was the race for a Supreme Court seat.
DeMillo: Yeah, that's correct. This was the race between Nicholas Bronni, who's a sitting justice on the court, and attorney John Adams. As your listeners know, the Arkansas Supreme Court is technically nonpartisan. But conservatives have a 5-2 majority on the court, and these are races that have become increasingly politicized over the years. Bronni had the endorsement of the Republican Party. Bronni defeated Adams, and it was a race where we were kind of watching to see what would happen. Adams had been going out around the state. They had both been kind of trading claims, accusing each other of being too ideologically driven. Adams had a background as someone who's run for office before as a Democrat. Bronni is someone who has been speaking to Republican groups, talks about being a conservative, and had promoted his work as solicitor general on cases that really seem to appeal to conservatives as well. This is a race that's not really going to change the tilt of the court. But it's going to have some big impact in the long term. There are some cases moving through the system right now dealing with the education system, dealing with abortion rights and also dealing with the state's method of execution. So whoever is on the court is going to have a big say in these big legal fights.
Moore: We also saw, in conjunction with primary elections, two special elections in Arkansas. One was in a House district in Pulaski County. The second one was a Senate district in the Arkansas River Valley. Let's start with that House district first.
DeMillo: This was a win for Democrats. This was House District 70. This was the seat that had been held by Carlton Wing, who now heads up Arkansas TV, which is formerly Arkansas PBS. This was a seat that Democrats had been focusing on in the special election. Democrats still hold very slim numbers in the legislature, so any kind of win is big progress for them, especially as we head into the fiscal session.
Moore: And then the special election in the Senate district as well — Republican won over an independent in that election.
DeMillo: Yeah. This was Senate District 26. This is a seat that really had been at the center of the debate over the Franklin County prison project. This is where the project is located. The Republican (Brad Simon) and independent candidate (Adam Watson) had both come out opposing the prison project being located in that area. This is a very predominantly Republican area, so we were looking to see if there was any kind of inroads for a Democrat. But on the top issue, which is the prison, they had both really taken the same position. So all things being equal, it still shakes out to be a Republican district. This is the late Sen. Gary Stubblefield's seat. Stubblefield, as you know, was very outspoken against the prison project. This is going to be a seat that is going to play a key role in some of the debate on that if it comes up in the fiscal session.
Moore: Staying on Senate elections, we saw two state Senate primaries across the state where Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders outspokenly and publicly chose a primary candidate who was contesting against an incumbent in the Senate. Let's talk a little bit about the results of those two elections.
DeMillo: These were both incumbents — Ron Caldwell and Bryan King. These were races that were really seen as kind of a litmus test of how far the governor's influence could go. Both of them had voted against the prison project and had split with the governor on some other key issues. So she had backed challengers in both of these. Honestly, these were races that ended up being a lot more dramatic than some of the statewide races and federal races, and really had the type of vitriol, the tone and tenor that you would expect to see in a nationally watched race. The mailers that were coming out had images of the Chinese flag, drones chasing farmers. In one of the races against Ron Caldwell, you had Kid Rock recording a video endorsing his challenger. So I think a lot of people are going to be looking at both incumbents winning to see what the impact is. Is this sending a message about the governor's influence? Is this sending a message about that kind of campaigning? Or is this sending a message about the prison project? I think there's going to be a lot to hash out with that in the coming weeks. These definitely were — it was kind of a surprise to see it shake out the way it did.
Moore: One of the things that sticks out to me: with Gov. Sanders' predecessor, Gov. Hutchinson, there was a lot of room between Republicans in the legislature and a Republican governor — there could be some differences of opinions on policy. We've seen much more alignment between the Republican legislature and Gov. Sanders. And in these two cases with Sen. Caldwell and Sen. King, where there has been opposition to some of their positions, you could argue this could be a place where Republicans in the legislature could say, maybe we can have some separation between us and the governor.
DeMillo: Yeah, definitely. And I think that was the thing that people were watching — was this going to send a message to Republicans of, this is the risk that you run if you split with the governor, even on just one or two key issues? The campaigns were really painting Caldwell and King — the average person on the street would refer to them as conservative, they're pretty conservative on most positions — but these campaigns were really trying to paint them as quote-unquote "woke" figures that you'd think would have been in a general election campaign. I think one of the things that we're going to be watching for is, is this going to kind of change tactics in terms of how she deals with the legislature when she faces resistance on things like the prison? The flip side too is, is there more room for Republicans to split with her or disagree with her publicly? Because for the most part, she has gotten nearly all of her top agenda items through the legislature relatively easily. The prison is the first example of an area where we're really seeing some resistance. It's because of the appropriations, because of the high threshold that you have to have to get that through the legislature. I think both sides have to look to see — does she change tactics, and also does this free up some legislators who are worried about political blowback?
Moore: Well, speaking of that, we've got the fiscal session coming up here soon. What's next on the agenda as far as Arkansas politics go?
DeMillo: In a really cruel bit of scheduling, today is when budget hearings begin. We have our reporters — probably as caffeinated as I am — who are at the hearings today to hear the governor's presentation for the budget for the coming year. A lot of the issues are not going to be that surprising, because we've been talking about them for a while. The top one being the prison — is there going to be another fight over appropriations for that, and where is the money going to come from? Is there going to be support to get that through the legislature? That's going to be one of the key things we're looking at. Also the school voucher program — looking to see how much additional money is going to be needed for that, and how much pushback there may be, especially from some rural Republican legislators who've raised concerns about the impact this has on school funding. And also the issue that we're seeing in states all over the country, which is the impact of decisions by the Trump administration — cuts we've seen in the big, beautiful bill on safety net programs and on many other programs. How much of that cost is going to be absorbed by Arkansas, and where is the money going to come from for that? The other issue is Arkansas still has a very healthy surplus, in addition to the money from this past year that had a nice boost from having a Powerball winner. There is some one-time money. And I think that's going to be the question — is that one-time money going to kind of fill in the gaps, or is there going to be resistance to really spending that with a lot of these unknowns at the federal level?
Moore: Andrew DeMillo is the editor in chief of the Arkansas Advocate. You can find all of their excellent reporting on the election and more at ArkansasAdvocate.com.
Ozarks at Large transcripts are created on a rush deadline. Copy editors utilize AI tools to review work. KUAF does not publish content created by AI. Please reach out to kuafinfo@uark.edu to report an issue. The audio version is the authoritative record of KUAF programming.
