In Tuesday’s general election, Arkansas voters will decide on the successor to Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson and the fate of a proposed constitutional amendment that would legalize recreational marijuana and three other proposed ballot measures.
Voters also will determine whether Republicans continue to hold a U.S. Senate seat, the state’s four congressional offices, and the state’s six other constitutional offices, including lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, state auditor, treasurer and land commissioner.
They also will cast ballots to elect a state Supreme Court justice, decide whether the Republican supermajority in the state House of Representatives and the state Senate ends, shrinks or expands, and vote on a slew of local government offices, including the heated four-candidate race for mayor in Little Rock.
Arkansas Secretary of State John Thurston’s office has projected that 916,674, or about 51%, of the state’s 1.79 million registered voters will cast ballots in this year’s general election. That forecast is roughly in line with the turnout in the past two midterm elections in 2014 and 2018.
Early voting started Oct. 24. Monday is the final day of early voting and will run from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Through Thursday, 363,255 early voters cast ballots compared with 342,570 at the same time during the last midterm election in 2018, according to the secretary of state’s office.
Polls open Tuesday at 7:30 a.m. and close at 7:30 p.m.
With Hutchinson barred by the state’s term limits amendment from seeking reelection, Republican gubernatorial nominee Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Democratic nominee Chris Jones, and Libertarian candidate Ricky Dale Harrington Jr. are vying for a four-year term.
Polls released during the past two months have shown Sanders leading Jones and Harrington, but the margin of her lead has been in dispute based on these polls.
State Democratic Party Chairman Grant Tennille said Jones” has run a remarkable race and I believe that he is going to get us a stronger result than any gubernatorial candidate since [Democratic Gov.] Mike Beebe in 2010.”
In 2014, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Mike Ross won 41.5% of the votes for governor against Republican rival Hutchinson, who won 55.4% of vote. Ross’ performance is the best of any Democratic gubernatorial candidate since Beebe won 64% of the votes in 2010.
Tennille said he expects Jones to exceed Ross’ performance and garner about 45% of the votes cast in the governor’s race.
“I am not discounting the fact … that we could see a huge surge right down at the end and he wins,” Tennille said.
Seth Mays, director of the Republican Party of Arkansas’ Victory campaign, said there is enthusiasm in the GOP for Sanders, a former White House press secretary for Donald Trump and the daughter of former Gov. Mike Huckabee.
“I see an incredibly motivated base, a candidate with absolute universal name ID, who has totally broke every fundraising record and has put that to good use,” he said.
Mays said he expects Sanders, of Little Rock, to win more than 60% of the votes cast in the governor’s race.
Janine Parry, a professor of political science and director of the Arkansas Poll at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, said she has been tracking the governor’s race closely.
“Mainly I’ve been curious about the lingering narrative that such a race could be competitive this year, given that the statewide Democratic average for governor, U.S. Senate, and presidential contests since 2012 has been 36 percent,” she said in a written statement.
Parry said there is no doubt Jones has injected some energy into a minority party candidacy, but it’s hard to imagine a contest otherwise more lopsided than this.
“And our traditional sampling technique — which over-represents older folks with higher incomes and educational attainment, like mid-term voters — bears that out,” she said. “Of course, polls — even mine — aren’t elections. So [it’s] still possible I could…
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