Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr. unveiled his re-election campaign with a video announcement Tuesday.
"As your mayor, I'm not backing down from the challenge to do more to strengthen our city," he said in the video.
A follow-up news conference was scheduled for later Tuesday morning.
Scott, 38, became the city's first popularly elected Black mayor when he defeated his opponents in the 2018 campaign. He replaced Mark Stodola, who retired.
Toward the start of his second year in office, Scott's administration was forced to respond to the covid-19 crisis, taking steps like implementing a mask mandate and then re-implementing a version of it amid the case surge tied to the delta variant.
In his bid to win a second term, Scott is likely to face questions over increased crime and turmoil within the Police Department. And in a sign of possible vulnerability, Scott's pitch for the "Rebuild the Rock" package last year meant to fund quality-of-life improvements failed to sway enough voters, with the sales-tax increase going down in defeat 62% to 38%.
Four prospective challengers have said they intend to run against Scott in November: food blogger Greg Henderson, real-estate broker Loretta Hendrix, auto dealer Steve Landers and nonprofit founder Pamela Whitaker.