The Hot Seat 2020: Arkansas’ 2nd District

Forecaster ratings:

Crystal Ball: Likely Republican

Cook Report: Safe Republican

Inside Elections: Safe Republican

In the 2018 cycle, I broke down Arkansas’ 2nd here and found it to be an uphill battle for Democrats though not impossible, agreeing that it leaned Republican. The results would agree, as incumbent Republican French Hill won it by 6 points, a sure win but nothing concrete. The reason I’m revisiting it is because you saw the beginning of trends that seemed to say that the better target opportunity to flip this district would be the upcoming 2020 cycle. Even though it was a win with 52% and in the single digits, the raters have moved this seat to safer than they had at this point last time around. In this writeup, I would argue instead that with the movement under the hood continuing, this rapidly growing, diversifying, and suburbanizing seat is much more competitive than it appears and that 2018 cemented the groundwork but a presidential year was crucial.

District Overview:

Arkansas’ 2nd congressional district rests smack dab in the middle of the state and includes the capital of Little Rock. It is made entirely up of whole counties in a growing area: Van Buren, Conway, Perry, White, Faulkner, Saline, and Pulaski. On the overview map above, there is a black outline west of the current district line enveloping Yell county which had been in the district before 2011. There is a mix of rural and urban counties contained within: Perry, Conway and Van Buren each cast less than 8,000 votes in 2016, while White cast almost double those three combined. Saline and Faulkner are the growing suburbs of Little Rock and cast nearly one hundred thousand combined, and Pulaski (which contains Little Rock) cast over half of the Districts’ votes.

Central Arkansas is seeing a lot of growth as well. Faulkner, Pulaski, and Saline counties have seen the White share of their counties decrease by about 3% each since 2010, mostly due to a growing Asian and Hispanic population. Saline especially, as about one third of the growth of the state of Arkansas between 2010 and 2017 was attributed to the county as the cities Benton and Bryant continue to see a population explosion of new residents moving in, and there is a rush to keep up with a new housing demand as young families make AR-2 their home. The next chart from City Data paints a good picture of newer homes, especially in relation to Arkansas as a whole.

This growth is important. It takes away from an incumbent advantage, brings in people with new priorities and not as much party allegiance, and is consistent with other booming areas moving towards Democrats. Overall, the demographics and population trends resemble Oklahoma City’s, where there was an upset flip in 2018.

The Fundamentals:

This Southern suburb resembles others of its type with a growing Hispanic population and new influx of residents. The below chart shows the AR-2 share of the vote in top of the ticket races since 2000 to get a sense on which areas are growing and which are not pulling their weight like they used to.

The biggest takeaway from the chart above is that the share of the vote has steadily shifted to Faulkner and Saline counties, while the smaller rurals are seeing a decline. The nationwide trend where denser areas move leftwards while smaller areas move rightward is encouraging for Democrats. Pulaski’s cycle to cycle variation suggests turnout in this almost majority-minority county (52% White alone and 37% Black) will play a large part in the final margin of this race. The next chart shows the lean of each county in presidential and gubernatorial races compared to the statewide margin.

There is a lot going on here with some bits of very good news for Democrats. The first is that White county at the bottom is the most Republican but as we saw in the figure above, it was decreasing in vote share and saw a drop in 2018. The budding Faulkner county also has seen trends towards the Democrats in 2016 and 2018, and the lean continued to change last cycle as well, so the expectation should be that it is sticking around for 2020. Saline county will be the wild card in 2020 as it trended slightly left but could be flat even as it makes up close to 16% of the votes in the district in the fall. THIS is where the parties should each be putting the most resources into and will be the microcosm of the battleground within the battleground. The Pulaski county trend appeared in the 2018 article too and it’s why I thought this district would be a better target in a presidential year. Republicans see a consistently better performance in Pulaski in midterm elections, but it has been trending towards Democrats for a decade now. Forecasting out, we would expect 2020 to be a new high for Democrats and almost definitely an improvement over last cycle’s margins. Running up the total there could help the Democrat’s flip this seat and makes a good case on top of the other points for why Hill is more vulnerable this time around.

Speaking of Hill, he has seen his split ticket performance erode over the last few cycles, especially in the larger counties where he would regularly enjoy large margins. After barely losing Pulaski county in 2016, Hill would lose by over 20 points there in 2018 and saw double digit drops in his margin in the next two largest Faulkner and Saline counties. This race is likely to be nationalized again and if targeted, Hill will need to rely on more than perceived good will for a firewall with the top of the ticket. A lot of 2016 split ticket winning candidates got swept away in 2018 and while Hill is in a redder district than Mike Coffman, he cannot afford to rest on his image in the district.

Democrats just 5 days ago added AR-2 to their target list, which they also did last cycle, though it got significantly less funding than other seats and Republicans still outspent by the usual amount. This seat has seen on and off races the last four times with no challenge in 2012 or 2016 for big Republican wins. As an open seat in 2014, Democrats made a play here and in a bad national year only lost by 8. Last cycle, Democratic outside groups spent just under $1 mil but their candidate Clarke Tucker who raised and spent a lot couldn’t keep up. After Hendrix college put out a September poll showing Hill winning by 9 and then a mid-October poll showing that lead expanding to 12, there was no additional investment. AR-2 is completely in the Little Rock/Pine Bluff media market that should be cheap but 2020 may come down to how willing Democratic outside groups are willing to put in to show that it is a serious investment.

The Candidates:

The Republican:

French Hill had a storied career before he ever wound up on the Hill. He served under President George H.W. Bush as executive secretary to the President’s Economic Policy Council, and was then CEO of the board of Delta Bank before it was bought out in 2014. The NRCC backed him after putting him on their “On the Radar,” list in late 2013, and have not committed to spending here in 2018. He provides a typical party line vote, with the only real deviation coming from his membership in the Congressional Arts caucus, which has 160 members in total, but only thirty-four Republicans. He did not start out with a war chest so has had to fundraise unlike last time but has been raising cash and as of Q1 had just over a million in the bank. If this race gets attention, he may need to diversify his fundraising base to expand: just 1.67% of his contributions have been small donors while PACs make up nearly half (Source: OpenSecrets.org)

The Democrat:

Joyce Elliott filed at the last minute when it looked like Hill may go unopposed this cycle. Elliott is a longtime elected official, serving in the Arkansas House of Representatives from 2000 to 2006 before moving to the upper house as a state senator in District 31 in 2008. This district is an urban Pulaski county seat and currently makes up 11.5% of AR-2, which could help with a boost. Current Chair of the Arkansas Legislative Black Caucus and former majority leader of the Arkansas State of Representatives and state senate majority leader, she is known for focusing on education bills in the legislature and has decent fundraising that can help in the run for Congress. She is also an outspoken progressive, self-labeled, even back in 2010 when she stood by Obamacare.

This stance made the news when she beat a moderate Democrat to become the congressional nominee of AR-2 all the way back in 2010 and this would be her second run of the mostly unchanged district. After raising $500,000, flagging fortunes nationwide led Democrats to abandon this district and Elliott lost by nearly 20 points (57.9–38.3), winning only Pulaski county. A Talk Business poll from August 2010 showing her down 17 and a tough challenger in Bush-connected Tim Griffin led the DCCC to pull a half a million dollar ad buy and Elliott’s relationship with the DCCC could again come into play. As of the same time period as Hill, she has raised about a quarter of a million dollars, though about 70% of that is from large individual contributions (Source: OpenSecrets.org)

The Others:

Usually at least 4 to 5% of the vote here goes to third party candidates which may provide a buffer for Hill, though in the past those have gone to registered Libertarian or Green Party candidates. Since some of the top Arkansas races have been unopposed in the past (and may be again this year for Senate!), there is a strong culture of protest voting. This year however on the third-party line is only one Independent: J. Glenn Smith. Smith has no online presence that I could find and does not appear to have the same campaign infrastructure that more established minor party candidates hold. All that is available is that he hails from Conway county, which is small and trending Republican.

The Verdict:

This all feels…eerily familiar. Southern growing suburbs, an incumbent not quite hitting the margins they used to, newly Hispanic population, weaker top of ticket, and a district with only nominal third-party opposition that doesn’t track with past downballot races. There is personal bias and nostalgia involved in trying to track down the next Oklahoma 5th and if I spend this cycle’s write-ups doing that then I’m going to bomb. But what the numbers bear out here is a district that deserves a second glance and that based on the patterns and trends should be a much more opportune flip in this presidential cycle. With traditional battlegrounds peeled away, the DCCC may finally have the cash to commit to this race and it could become a real barnburner. Overall, AR-2 is one to watch, a suburban seat in a red state ripe to become the next epicenter of a tectonic shift in the coalitions.