Category Archives: Politics

Loss of family farm leads Shoffner to challenge Sen. Cotton

By Steve Brawner, © 2025 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Hallie Shoffner, a sixth generation farmer, quit farming this year after she created six different spreadsheets and realized that, in this agriculture economy, there was no scenario where she could turn a profit. Faced with that prospect, she sold the operation and instead is campaigning for the U.S. Senate seat held by Sen. Tom Cotton.

Shoffner officially launched her campaign as a Democrat for the 2026 election Tuesday. Dan Whitfield, who unsuccessfully sought the party’s nomination in 2022, has also said he is running.

Shoffner, 37, grew up on her family farm near Newport and spent the last nine years running the operation. She raised rice, soybeans, cotton, corn and grain sorghum. The married mother of a six-year-old also is the founder and owner of Delta Harvest. That’s a business that connects small- and midsize farmers such as specialty rice growers with food buyers. Her experience losing her farm is a big part of her campaign.

“We are living in a time in which hard work does not mean a good life anymore because we live in an economy that’s rigged against real people,” she said. “We live in an economy that helps corporations and politicians, and that does not work for real Arkansans. And as a sixth-generation farmer who knows what that’s like, if I can’t farm, I’m going to fight for the people of Arkansas.” 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 →

Family losses from alcohol led Wood to Prohibition Party

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

Why would Michael Wood, 66, a former head of an e-commerce company and married father of two, run for president as the nominee of the anti-alcohol Prohibition Party?

It’s partly because when he was a young man, one cousin drank himself to death at a college fraternity party, while another family member was injured by a drunk driver.

The Prohibition Party has existed since 1869, making it the nation’s oldest third party. It has fielded a presidential candidate in every election since 1872. It is best known historically for supporting a national ban on alcohol sales, a stance it does not take today. 

Wood will be one of five non-major party presidential candidates on the Arkansas ballot, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has dropped out of the race. The others are Chase Oliver with the Libertarian Party, Peter Sonski with the American Solidarity Party, and Jill Stein with the Green Party. Wood’s vice presidential running mate is John Pietrowski. 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 →

Maybe Asa would run with No Labels after all

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

Could former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson be considering a third party presidential bid after all? He’s not shutting the door.

I texted the governor Wednesday evening after hearing through the grapevine that No Labels may be considering him as a potential candidate. That’s the group that’s been trying to put together an independent “Unity” ticket composed of a Republican and a Democrat.

The text conversation occurred a week-and-a-half after one March 11 when he said he was not the right candidate, and the group would need someone with a bigger profile and more money than he. He said he was considering other options in the private sector.

Asked in that second text conversation Wednesday if he was still not interested, he wrote, “No one offers the experience I have. If they can show a path to win and the money needed then I will listen to them.”  Continue reading →