Prediction game: Prison stays stuck, Dems win U.S. House

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

What might happen in Arkansas in 2026? Let’s play the prediction game.

– The March 3 primaries will produce no big surprises and generate a voter turnout of about 20%. Sen. Tom Cotton and Rep. French Hill easily will win their contests. State Sen. Fred Love, D-Mablevale, will be the Democratic nominee for governor, while Hallie Shoffner will be the Democrats’ U.S. Senate nominee. Chris Jones will be the nominee to face Hill in the 2nd District.

State Sens. Bryan King, R-Green Forest, and Ronald Caldwell, R-Wynne, both will win their primary races. Those are the two Republican state senators who voted against Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ $800 million prison last year and who face primary opponents. Continue reading →

Why should voters care about school board elections?

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

School board races aren’t the highest profile ones in a particular election, but they are important. This year, all of the contested ones across Arkansas will occur in the March 3 primaries.

That’s a change from how it’s been previously, when school districts have had the option of holding their elections in either the party primaries or the November general election. Lawmakers removed that option during last year’s legislative session.

For many years before that, school board members were elected in September school elections. Voter turnouts then often were extremely low.

Why should voters care about school board elections? What do school board members do, and what are their powers and limitations? Continue reading →

A Pearl Harbor ceremony without Pearl Harbor survivors

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

This year’s commemoration of the attack on Pearl Harbor in Honolulu on Dec. 7 was missing one irreplaceable element: Pearl Harbor survivors. 

As reported by the Associated Press in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, none of the 12 living survivors, all now past 100 years old, were able to make the trip. It was the first time no survivors were present to mark the attack other than 2020 during COVID.

The news was another reminder that the World War II generation is now all but gone.  Continue reading →

Can Watson win as an independent?

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

Can the right independent candidate running for the right office in the right circumstance win in Arkansas? Or must a candidate have a party label by his or her name on the ballot? 

We’ll have another chance to find out March 3.

The candidate in this case is Adam Watson of Branch, who is running to replace the late Sen. Gary Stubblefield, also of Branch. The office is state Senate District 26, which Stubblefield, a Republican, represented until his death in September. 

And the circumstance is the fact that the district includes Franklin County, where Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has proposed building a 3,000-bed prison.

That prison has generated what Watson called “overwhelming opposition,” and so far it is stalled in the Legislature. Many Franklin County residents don’t want to bring a big prison into their community. Furthermore, Watson said the area does not have enough workers to fill the projected 800 staff positions. At the moment, the site lacks an adequate water supply and other needed infrastructure. And there are some hard feelings about the lack of communication between the Sanders administration and local residents. Continue reading →