U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton picked up an endorsement Tuesday from the National Federation of Independent Business, a lobbying group that touts itself as “the voice of small business.”
The advocacy group, which fights government regulations targeted at business, had also endorsed Tom Cotton in his U.S. House race in 2012, a year when it backed Republicans over Democrats by a better than 10-1 margin.
Sylvester Smith III, the group’s state director and lobbyist, introduced Cotton at the endorsement announcement Tuesday morning at Sufficient Grounds Cafe in downtown Little Rock.
"He listens to what our members have to say, and he's done everything he can to create an environment where they can succeed," Smith said.
The endorsement is based on Cotton's positions on issues including health care, taxes, and labor and regulatory issues, the group said, adding that it polled more than 4,000 Arkansas members in deciding whom to endorse in the race between Cotton and Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor.
Arkansas Democratic Party spokesman Patrick Burgwinkle noted in a statement that The Washington Post has identified the NFIB as part of a “coalition of nonprofit groups backed by a [$400 million] donor network organized by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch.” Groups backed by the Koch brothers have spent millions of dollars chastising Pryor for voting for the president's 2010 health care law, while the family business, Koch Industries, has spent tens of thousands supporting the senator over the past few years, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette previously reported.
