The candidate filing period for the 2024 election is set to begin Monday, with races for president, Congress and state treasurer on the ballot next year.
Filing will begin at noon and will end eight days later -- at noon Tuesday, Nov. 14 -- with some candidates choosing to file in person at the state Capitol while others may show up at county clerk offices around the state.
Arkansas -- along with other states such as California, Texas, Virginia, North Carolina and Oklahoma -- will hold its primary elections March 5, also known as Super Tuesday. The runoff election is April 2, 2024, and the general election is Nov. 5, 2024.
The March 5 primary means an earlier filing and campaigning cycle for candidates compared with nonpresidential election years. Those primaries are typically held in May.
Leading up to filing day, dozens of Arkansans around the state have announced their intention to seek office for the first time, while others have stated their plans to seek reelection. Heading into Monday, a lot still needs to be decided in various races. Additionally, a lot of closely contested races are expected -- and that includes incumbents facing off against tough primary challengers.
The Republican Party will look to hold its supermajorities in the state Legislature, while also keeping all four U.S. House seats. There also will be an election for someone to finish the remainder of the term of state Treasurer Mark Lowery, who died earlier this year.
Democrats' stated goal is to break the Republican stronghold on state government and contest many of the races the party hasn't been competitive in for years. State-level Democrats have announced their candidacy, hoping to capitalize on what they see as a new enthusiasm for local issues.
Arkansas will also have races for three seats on the Arkansas Supreme Court and two for the Arkansas Court of Appeals. Voters will also have the task of filling seven circuit court and 70 district court seats this March.
For those running outside the Republican and Democratic parties' paradigm, Libertarian candidates running in 2024 do not have to file this week. Instead, Libertarians select their candidates at a convention and have until noon March 5 to submit their paperwork.
Independent candidates do have to file during the filing period, but don't have to pay a fee to do so. To get on the ballot, independent candidates will need to submit a candidate petition to the secretary of state's office by May 1.
STATE RACES
For the General Assembly, all 100 House seats and 18 Senate seats will be on the ballot in 2024. Currently, Republicans hold 82 of the state House of Representative's 100 seats and 29 of the state Senate's 35 spots in the largest majority the party has had since Reconstruction.
So far state Reps. Charlene Fite, R-Van Buren; Josh Miller, R-Heber Springs; Lanny Fite, R-Benton; Delia Haak, R-Centerton; Mark Berry, R-Ozark; Milton Nicks, D-Marion; Jack Fortner, R-Yellville; Jamie Scott, D-North Little Rock; and Deborah Ferguson, D-West Memphis, have said they will not seek reelection to their House seats. State Sen. Linda Chesterfield, D-Little Rock, also announced she will not seek reelection with Scott announcing a bid for Chesterfield's Senate seat.
Seth Mays, executive director of the Republican Party of Arkansas, said the GOP will look to add to their majority, but noted, "There is only so much more that can be won."
Mays said the party will run about 120 candidates for the General Assembly, but added it is difficult to come up with an exact estimate as some who will file next week haven't yet contacted the GOP. To build on the party's legislative stronghold, Mays said Republicans may run multiple candidates for House seats currently held by Democrats Nicks; Ashley Hudson, of Little Rock; and Steve Magie, of Conway.
Mays said Republicans will run on education, tax cuts and criminal justice, saying they were the three key items that passed in the last legislative session.
"Those are the issues you hear about when you're back home talking to people," Mays said. "Be it crime, or jobs or education. There is nothing that's more personal to main street Arkansas than those three issues."
As for Democrats, in order to break the GOP supermajority and give themselves a say in budget negotiations, they will need to pick up an additional eight seats in the House. To succeed, Democrats will have to contest more races, something Grant Tennille, chair of the Democratic Party of Arkansas, said his party has vowed to do this upcoming election cycle.
For Tennille, running candidates is about not only picking up more seats, but also getting their message to voters who may not otherwise hear it.
"I think you're going to see strong candidates in places that haven't been able to field candidates in the past," Tennille said. "But you're still going to see some places where I'd love to be running and we're just, in many cases, the community is just not ready. They haven't produced somebody yet."
Tennille said the party's candidate recruitment has been boosted by Republican "culture war nonsense," such as the LEARNS Act and bills imposing criminal penalties on library personnel for knowingly distributing obscene material, along with a recent controversy over the governor's office's purchase of a $19,000 lectern.
Will Watson, the Democratic Party of Arkansas' strategic director, said he estimates 55 candidates will file to run for House seats while five candidates will run for the Senate. Breaking it down, Watson said Democrats will aim to compete heavily in 12 to 15 districts they don't hold in the House.
Democrats said they have focused their candidate recruiting efforts on the Delta and south Arkansas including Magnolia and Camden; Central Arkansas seats in Conway, Bryant, Sherwood and Jacksonville; and Northwest Arkansas districts along Interstate 49 in places such as Rogers, Springdale and Bentonville.
Because of redistricting, all state senators had to run for reelection in the last cycle with 18 senators having to run for reelection just two years after being elected. Watson said, "This is not a friendly cycle to Democrats on the state Senate side."
While the Democratic Party governed Arkansas for the better of 150 years, the party is at its lowest level of influence since Reconstruction. Tennille said the key to rebuilding the party was winning state legislative races because that can build up some momentum to win statewide races.
Janine Parry, a political scientist at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, said the March 5 primaries will be the more important election for state legislative races, as most seats in the General Assembly are noncompetitive for the general election.
"While people will mostly show up for the presidency, from a policy point of view, the real action is going to be in those [primary] contests," Parry said. "And most of the filings and most of the campaigning will happen in the primary season."
As for the lone constitutional office on the ballot, Republican John Thurston has already announced a run for state treasurer. Thurston, who is the current secretary of state, is the lone Republican to announce his intention to run for the office, which will be up for election again in 2026. Tennille said Democrats hope to have a candidate for treasurer, but admitted recruiting someone has been tricky, given Thurston already holds a statewide office.
PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS
The 2024 presidential election could see a rematch of Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Biden announced his reelection campaign and is expected to file. Whether other announced Democratic presidential candidates such as Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips will be on the ballot remains to be seen.
For the Republican presidential primary, Mays said he expects representatives for several GOP candidates to file in person this week. While the GOP field is expected to winnow down, some of the top contenders include Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. May said long-shot GOP nominee and former Gov. Asa Hutchinson is the only presidential candidate he believes will file to run in person this week.
While Arkansas' early primary will allow the state to have a role in the presidential nominating process, given the Natural State's population, Parry said, "We're just still so small relative to the other states it's kind of hard to be a big deal."
While Arkansas typically holds its primaries in May during nonpresidential years, holding a March 5 primary allows Arkansans to vote for nominees before the presidential nominating process is wrapped up in the spring.
For Congress, all four members of the state's delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives, Republicans Rick Crawford, French Hill, Steve Womack and Bruce Westerman, are expected to file. So far, Democrats Marcus Jones, who will run against Hill in the 2nd District, and Caitlin Draper, who will run against Womack in the 3rd District, have announced their plans to file.
Tennille said there will be Democratic challengers running for all four congressional seats. State Sen. Clint Penzo, R-Springdale, said he is considering a bid to challenge Womack in the Republican primary for the 3rd Congressional District.
Both Republicans and Democrats agreed that the early primary for Arkansas in 2024 has created some challenges. While Mays said he expects a strong showing in the candidate filings this week, he said this election cycle is more quiet when it comes to recruiting Republicans to run.
"I have talked to a number of candidates this cycle that are specifically interested in running in nonpresidential years," Mays said. "They want to run in a year the governor leads the ticket so we already got recruitment for the next cycle."
Parry said nonpresidential elections tend to favor Republicans, as the voters in those years tend to skew older and more white when compared with presidential elections.
Watson said the early primary date has made it more difficult to recruit people to run for office as it "extends the election calendar." In other words, the campaign season begins much earlier.
"For us, it is challenging to get working-class Arkansans to commit to a full year of running," Watson said.
JUDICIAL RACES
Candidates for nonpartisan judicial races will also begin filing Monday, unless they have already submitted signatures to the secretary of state's office in September.
Unlike most races, judicial elections are officially nonpartisan with the March 5 election serving as the general election for those races unless a runoff is needed. Three spots on the Arkansas Supreme Court will be on the ballot in March. The seven justices who serve on the court are elected through statewide races and serve eight-year terms.
Three current Supreme Court justices, Karen Baker, Rhonda Wood and Barbara Webb, and former Democratic state lawmaker Jay Martin have announced they will run for chief justice, a spot held by John Dan Kemp.
Kemp said he plans to retire at the end of his term, saying that because he is older than 70, he would have to forfeit his retirement benefits under state law if he were reelected.
Voters will also have to select a justice to serve in the Position 2 seat, which was held by Justice Robin Wynne, who died in office earlier this year. Sanders appointed former U.S. Attorney and Republican Party of Arkansas Chairman Cody Hiland to serve until 2025.
Current Supreme Court Justice Courtney Hudson, of Position 3, announced she will run for Wynne's spot in the court as it would allow her to serve longer before retirement. Circuit Judge Carlton D. Jones of Texarkana also announced a run for Position 2, formerly held by Wynne.
Justice Shawn Womack announced plans to seek reelection to the high court's Position 5.
Two spots on the Arkansas Court of Appeals are up for election in 2024 with two candidates having qualified through signatures. Current Court of Appeals Judge Waymond M. Brown has qualified for his reelection campaign for District 7. Attorney Pam Hathaway, of Little Rock, has qualified through petition to run for District 6, Position 1 on the court.