Kumar plans to face Womack in primary

He criticizes incumbent as ‘too weak’

Supporters of a candidate cavort across the street from a polling place in Little Rock's Hillcrest neighborhood Tuesday afternoon, March 3, 2020.  (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/John Sykes Jr.)
Supporters of a candidate cavort across the street from a polling place in Little Rock's Hillcrest neighborhood Tuesday afternoon, March 3, 2020. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette/John Sykes Jr.)

Neil Robinson Kumar of Bentonville announced Monday that he plans to challenge U.S. Rep. Steve Womack in the Republican primary for Arkansas' 3rd Congressional District.

"Rep. Womack has failed to serve his conservative constituents, who overwhelmingly voted for President Trump in 2020," Kumar, 25, said in a statement. "By voting with Nancy Pelosi and other rabidly partisan Democrats to establish a 9/11 style commission into the mostly-peaceful January 6 protest at the Capitol, he proved that he is too weak to represent the people of Arkansas's 3rd district."

Kumar said in his announcement that he believes in closed borders; a total suspension on all immigration, legal and illegal; and an end to "birthright citizenship." He also said he wanted to end what he calls the "war on the working class."

"Rural America has been decimated by the offshoring of quality jobs and the opioid epidemic, leaving Americans hopeless and desperate," Kumar said. "Meanwhile, these same Americans are demonized for their so-called privilege in the media, and by the radical Democrats in Washington. They deserve to thrive, and not be bombarded with Critical Race Theory propaganda or LGBT perversion, both of which paint them as 'oppressors' while they struggle to survive."

Kumar's campaign website states that he is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution and the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

The campaign website also states that Kumar wants to protect American and Confederate flags, graves and monuments; remove anti-American and anti-Southern materials from public lands and monuments; and deny federal funding to education institutions that teach "anti-American values" and tax their endowments.

Kumar's platform includes plans on charging politicians and corporations supportive of abortion or Planned Parenthood with accessory to murder, repealing the Civil Rights Act, freeing those arrested during the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, ending all absentee and electronic voting, and reversing drug decriminalization.

Kumar also supports anti-LGBTQ measures. His platform states that he supports only heterosexual marriage, restricting adoption to heterosexual married couples and criminalizing transgender pharmaceuticals and surgical procedures.

Kumar is a University of Arkansas, Fayetteville law student who will graduate in the spring of 2022, according to his campaign.

Lauren Mallett-Hays, a speech-language pathologist from Farmington, announced earlier this year her Democratic bid for the 3rd Congressional District seat.

Womack, 64, was first elected to Congress in 2010. None of the three Democrats who have challenged him in his races for Congress attained more than 33% of the vote. He's the ranking Republican member of the House Appropriations Committee.

Attempts to reach Womack and his campaign weren't successful on Monday.

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