By Steve Brawner, © 2020 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Is Arkansas “the reddest state not only in the South but in the entire nation”? That’s what state Republican Party Chairman Doyle Webb said during his part of the roll call vote at the Republican National Convention.

Twelve years ago, that statement was unimaginable. Arkansas had been dominated by Democrats since the Civil War and had produced the nation’s previous president.

Now? All six members of Arkansas’ congressional delegation, its seven constitutional officers, and three-fourths of its state Legislature are Republicans. In the 2016 election, Trump beat Hillary Clinton, Arkansas’ first lady for 12 years back when Arkansas was one of the nation’s bluest states, by a 61-34% margin.

Arkansas still has many Democratic elected officials at the county level who have not yet retired, switched parties or lost. But Webb didn’t say Arkansas was the most Republican state. He called it the reddest, which is more of a national and state description and speaks to voter outlooks and trends.

Is he right? Let’s compare.

If you haven’t been paying attention to politics lately, you might think Texas would be the nation’s reddest. But Texas, thanks to its large Hispanic population, is increasingly competitive. Thirteen of its 37 U.S. House seats are occupied by Democrats, and there’s a lot of talk about that number growing after November. Democrats are hoping to gain control of the state House, currently controlled 83-67 by Republicans. Polls have shown the presidential race between Trump and Vice President Biden is tight there.

It’s not Texas.

What about Alabama? One of its two U.S. senators is a Democrat. True, Sen. Doug Jones won his seat by defeating a candidate with a history of courting young girls. Jones will probably lose this November to former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville, a Republican and native of Camden, Arkansas. But Alabama also has a Democratic U.S. House member.

Every other red state in this region has at least a pocket of Democratic representation in Congress. All of Oklahoma’s statewide officials are Republicans, and its Legislature is even more Republican than Arkansas’. But one of its five U.S. representatives is a Democrat. One of Mississippi’s four U.S. House members is a Democrat, as are two of Tennessee’s nine House members. Georgia has four House Democrats among its 14 seats, one of which is vacant and almost certainly will be filled by another Democrat.

Are any states elsewhere redder than Arkansas? It’s not Utah, where one of its four U.S. House members is a Democrat, or Kansas, which has a Democratic House member and a Democratic governor. Alaska is controlled by Republicans, but its speaker of the House is an independent and former Democrat. Nebraska is all Republican at the national and statewide levels, but its Legislature, which has only senators, is officially nonpartisan. According to numbers available at the Ballotpedia website, the actual partisan makeup is 63% Republican, which is a lower percentage than in Arkansas.

If any states are redder, it’s the big, rural states up north. In Idaho, the Dakotas and Wyoming, the congressional delegations and statewide elected officials are all Republicans, and the Legislatures are more Republican than in Arkansas: 80% in Idaho; 82% in North Dakota; 84% in South Dakota; and 85.5% in Wyoming, using Ballotpedia’s numbers.

Returning to Webb’s Republican National Convention statement, he can definitely argue that Arkansas is the South’s reddest state, at least at the state and national levels.

As for the nation, he’d have a tough time winning an argument with Wyoming Republicans. However, those four states mentioned above have only five U.S. House members combined. Arkansas has four by itself. Compared to them, Arkansas is a big state.

If it were up to me, Arkansas would not be the reddest state. It would be the one with the most independents, setting an example for others to soon follow.

Webb might not want Arkansas to be the reddest either. It’s an election year, and Texas has nine times as many U.S. House members and 33 more Electoral College votes.