The March 3 primaries feature two state Senate primaries where Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders supports a challenger opposing a sitting Republican senator. 

Both senators voted against her administration’s proposed Franklin County prison in the last legislative session.

The two are Sen. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, of District 28, and Sen. Ronald Caldwell, R-Wynne, of District 10. King faces Bobby Ballinger, while Caldwell faces Trey Bohannan.

The support of Ballinger over King is not surprising. King is a bluntly speaking and cussedly independent senator who often clashes with Republican Party leadership – particularly Sen. Bart Hester, R-Cave Springs, the Senate president pro tempore. 

Caldwell is not an obvious thorn in the leadership’s side. But he did vote against funding the prison, which failed to make it out of the Senate last year after five votes but remains on the table.

We’ll focus on the District 28 race. It’s the third time King has faced a Ballinger. King defeated Ballinger’s dad, former state Sen. Bob Ballinger, to claim the seat in 2022. The elder Ballinger had ousted King from his state Senate seat in 2018.

In this case, the challenger is raising more money than the incumbent. Ballinger has the support of political action committees led by Sanders, Attorney General Tim Griffin, and Hester. Sanders’ Team SHS PAC has contributed $7,000 to Ballinger’s campaign, just as it has to Bohannan’s against Caldwell. That’s the maximum allowed under Arkansas law per election cycle.

King, a married contract chicken grower, told me he’s been fighting the good fight on issues such as protecting the Buffalo River and opposing cryptocurrency mines. 

As for the prison, which would be located near his district, King remains a staunch opponent. He believes the official estimate of $825 million is too low given what other states have spent. His solution has been to build smaller facilities around the eight counties contributing the majority of the inmates into the system. 

Ballinger, 32, is a married father of four who owns a tree trimming business and has been a homebuilder. He said he tried to find someone to run against King without success, and that the governor did not recruit him. 

Ballinger said his top issues are cutting spending, reducing government, and reducing unnecessary regulations. He supports building a prison but is “opposed to the current plan.”

King voted present and then no on Sanders’ 2023 LEARNS Act, in which educational freedom accounts provide money for families to pay for private school expenses. The cost of the program has reached $309.4 million this fiscal year. He said it’s fiscally irresponsible and has different standards for public and private schools, and he doesn’t like the speed with which it passed. 

Ballinger said he’s a “big fan” of the act, including the educational freedom accounts, which he said empower families. He said the law is imperfect and needs to be tweaked, but Arkansas’ low ranking in education showed something “drastic needed to be done.”

Ballinger told me he expects to be on the same page with the governor much of the time. However, he said he will represent his district independently.

“I’m not advocating for going along to get along,” he said. “We don’t need any more rubber stamps or yes men or people who don’t have voices. That’s not at all what I’m saying. I think you need somebody who’s got courage, but also, you know, the decorum of understanding what it’s going to take to get things done.”

He said his district’s needs are being overshadowed by King’s “toxic disdain for the governor, for leadership down there.”

Told about that quote, King said he has a “toxic disdain for wasted taxpayer money.”

He said his party didn’t mind when he was criticizing Democrats for their big spending or for what he described as cozy relationships between political leaders, lobbyists, and contractors. 

He doesn’t pass a lot of bills. In fact, he successfully sponsored only one in the past four years. However, he said he is effective in the opposite direction, having helped put the brakes on what he called “this mega prison scam.”

“I mean, do you want to sit there and pass some little bill or something like that and beat your chest over and then sink us into a financial disaster?” he said.

The race will decide only one of the 35 Senate seats, just as the Caldwell-Bohannan race will. 

But a couple of votes could be important when legislators vote on the prison and on other matters. 

We’ll see what happens March 3, when the voters in Districts 10 and 28 have their say first.

By Steve Brawner, © 2026 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Steve Brawner’s column is syndicated to 21 outlets in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com.