Arkansas has changed politically more rapidly than any other state in the union. But it’s not because its people have changed, but because every other part of the country has changed and it’s responding to those changes to protect its own best interests.
More good news out of Arkansas, Tom Cotton appears to be regaining the lead over faux moderate Mark Pryor.
The colors are backwards, as usual. Arkansas’ realignment was delayed because of Huckster, and he gave the GOP a bad name and left it for dead when he exited in 2007. It took having bonafide Democrats in charge to rapidly move the state to the GOP column under Beebe/Zero.
Also no mention in the article was that the seeds of the modern majority were planted along the western border with OK, the stretch from south of the heavily GOP SW Missouri (heavy GOP even during Dem dominance) to Fort Smith. The “realignment” there occurred in 1966 with the election of Hammerschmidt to Congress and Winthrop Rockefeller & Footsie Britt to Governor and Lt Governor. The next seeds were planted in the Little Rock suburbs (which elected a Congressman in 1978 a dozen years after Hammerschmidt). Unfortunately, aside from Jay Dickey’s win in 1992, the GOP couldn’t make any breakouts at the legislative level beyond those two areas, and only in the past decade started to elect Republicans beyond those areas (though the SE AR area with its large Black population and stagnant to declining growth remains where the Dems will likely be reduced to holding office outside of urban liberal areas).
Also not mentioned (and erroneous) was the Republican’s comment in the article that “everyone” in the state was Democrat. Unlike MS, LA & SC (which was voting Democrat for President by margins in the 80%s to almost 99%), AR had a modest GOP bloc that made it one of the more GOP of the Southern states (even after the Jim Crow laws were implemented). It voted 35% for McKinley in 1900, an improvement over 1896 when he got 25% (neighboring LA gave him 21%, MS gave him under 10% and SC 7%). In 1920 in the GOP landslide, it gave Harding his 4th highest % in the South with 39% (with only NC, KY & TN, the last of which Harding won, doing better).
After 1928 when Hoover again scored 39% (being one of only 8 states that Al Smith won, and this with their Senator Joe Robinson, the Minority Leader, as Smith’s running mate), only with the Depression did AR start voting more like the Deep South states, dropping to 13% for Hoover in 1932. By 1944, it was back up to 30% (for Dewey) and the anti-Truman vote in 1948 was 38% (21% for Dewey & 17% for Thurmond).
By 1952, Ike got a whopping 44% and 46% in 1956. Nixon got 43% in 1960 as did Goldwater in 1964. Nixon might’ve made the breakthrough in 1968, but Wallace carried the state with 39% to Nixon’s 31% (Humphrey got 30%, the lowest % for a Dem candidate in AR since Stephen Douglas in 1860 - who got less than 10%).
In 1972, Nixon carried EVERY county in AR with 69% (though McGovern received a slightly higher % than Humphrey did, 30.7 to 30.3%). Carter reversed that getting 65% (with Ford winning all of 3 counties, all in the NW). Reagan beat Carter by just 5,000 votes in 1980 (48.1 to 47.5%). He got 60% in 1984 and Bush, Sr. got 56% in 1988. Only because of Clinton did the state go back in the Dem column in 1992 and 1996 when he won 53% and 54%). Dubya put it back in the GOP column to date with 51% in 2000, 54% in 2004. McCain almost got Reagan’s 1984 performance with 59% in ‘08 and Willard beat it with 61% in ‘12, second only to Nixon’s ‘72 landslide.
So as you can see, the state never, except for a handful of occasions, was lacking for a respectable 1/3rd bloc of GOP voters for most of the 20th century until it finally tipped it downballot following the effects of Clinton & Huckster.