Category Archives: Elections

Trump will win Arkansas anyway, so vote how you want

By Steve Brawner, © 2024 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

I guess one of the Electoral College’s upsides is that if you live in a solidly red state like Arkansas or in a blue state, you don’t have to stress too much about your vote.

The corresponding downside is, neither will the campaigns. 

Arkansas’ six Electoral College votes aren’t in play because they will certainly go to former President Donald Trump. A  September poll by Talk Business & Politics and Hendrix College confirmed what everyone already knew. Trump was leading Vice President Kamala Harris, 55%-40%, while 3% favored other candidates and only 2% were undecided. 

The survey was conducted Sept. 5-6, two months before the election. Trump elicits such strong emotions that it’s unlikely his or Harris’ numbers will move much. If they do, it would probably be in Trump’s favor. No Democrat has polled above 40% in a statewide race in Arkansas since 2014. The Biden-Harris ticket four years ago only received 35%. Maybe she’ll gain a few points from some voters’ “Trump fatigue.” 

The Electoral College combined with the country’s division into red and blue states means we no longer really have national presidential elections. Arkansas being a solidly red state makes it politically irrelevant. Trump will take the state for granted while Harris will write it off. In fact, the entire election will come down to seven states: Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona. Continue reading →

Green Party’s Stein: End corporate control, ‘endless war’

By Steve Brawner, © 2024 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Arkansans’ ballots will have four independent presidential candidates who are still in the race. Today, let’s meet the Green Party’s Dr. Jill Stein, the one Democrats don’t want to be there.

They fear Stein, the most liberal candidate on Arkansans’ ballots, will siphon votes from Vice President Kamala Harris. Some people believe her 1.4 million votes in 2016 cost Hillary Clinton the election.

Stein doesn’t see it that way. 

“That’s the nature of democracy,” she told me by phone from her home outside Boston. “I’m sorry. Do we say that Republicans are stealing votes from Democrats? No, they have different agendas and different points of view.”

Indeed, Stein’s agenda is very different than those of Democrats and Republicans, both of which she described as beholden to corporations. Continue reading →

Sonski running on life, solidarity

By Steve Brawner, © 2024 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Arkansans who don’t want to vote for former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris will have four other candidates to choose from, not including Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who has left the race but will remain on the ballot. Today, let’s meet Peter Sonski with the American Solidarity Party.

The ASP was incorporated in 2016 and largely bases its platform on a Christian worldview and Catholic social teaching, Sonski said. Its website says its presidential candidate received 42,305 votes nationwide in 2020. That included 1,713 in Arkansas, or .14% of the vote statewide.

The party believes in the sanctity of human life and that all public policies should benefit human beings. 

“We start with that foundation, and we are pro-life from womb to tomb, as we like to say,” he told me.  Continue reading →

If you can’t beat them, go around them?

By Steve Brawner, © 2024 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

It’s hard for many groups to get much done via representative democracy in Arkansas these days, so this election season – and maybe in future ones – they are trying the direct democracy route.

As you may have noticed, there are more proposed ballot initiatives this year than voters can shake a stick at. 

Meanwhile, there are few competitive candidate races. The presidential race is a foreground conclusion at this point. The only statewide race will be a special election for state treasurer, which Republican Secretary of State John Thurston almost certainly will win. Republicans will likely maintain their control of more than 80% of the Legislature. Continue reading →

Arkansas Democrats hope this election is ‘inflection point’

By Steve Brawner, © 2024 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Could this be the election where Arkansas Democrats reverse a decade-and-a-half slide that has left them at times nearly powerless in deciding which laws get passed?

The party’s strategy director, Will Watson, thinks so.

Watson and other Democrats are encouraged by a new poll the party commissioned that described at least 17 competitive “battleground” state legislative districts. Republicans represent 14 while Democrats represent three. Continue reading →