[00:00:00] Speaker A: The 2024 election cycle is ramping up, with Arkansas's primary election now less than three weeks away. No doubt you've heard it's a presidential election year, and yes, that's a big reason to go to the polls. But there are other races worth watching as well at the state and local levels. We're going to talk about that, along with what you should know before you go to vote on this week's edition of the Know the news podcast.
Hi, everyone. I'm Dave Perozic, managing editor of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette and your podcast host this week. Our politics reporter Doug Thompson joins me here today.
He has been busy the past several weeks writing stories we've published about the primary races for state house in our area, as well as the Benton county prosecuting attorneys race. By the way, you can find all election related stories that we've published so
[email protected]. Doug, thanks for being here.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Thank you for inviting me.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Well, we could probably spend hours talking about the candidates for president, but I think there's enough talk about that race in the media already.
So I want to focus on the races that you have written about and are still writing about, one race that maybe wanted to talk about first that you have not covered personally but is still very relevant to our area. The third district congressional race primary between Mr. Womack and Clint Penzo, state senator from Springdale.
[00:02:02] Speaker B: Well, let's talk about that, because it is, I'll put it this way.
Northwest Arkansas third congressional district is literally one of the safest republican districts in the entire country. That is no exaggeration. It's been republican since 1967.
Okay? And that's not to disparage Caitlin Draper, the democratic nominee in this race. It's just a fact of life. She knows it's an uphill climb.
But here we are with the republican majority in the House hanging by a thread, and then if there was a reasonably unified republican party, there wouldn't be a primary here. They'd be concentrating their money and their effort on know that they could possibly know Mr. Pinzo. Although Congressman Steve Womack has an enormous fundraising advantage, Senator Pinzo has got real conservative bona fides. And a lot of people in northwest Arkansas who are dedicated Republicans who are primary voters are mad at Womack for various things I could go into. Keep in mind, only about 30% of voters turn out in a primary, even in presidential election year. So, yeah, it wouldn't take many for Penzo to make a really good show. It's even possible you win it. But that has an important effect even on the down ballot races that are going to be the main points of our discussion today because it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest since Democrats vote in the mean, you know, they might as well anyway, the primary is going to decide who's going to be in mean in the state legislature, that we've only got one democratic House primary in all of northwest Arkansas, so why not vote in the republican primary? And if they vote in the republican primary, they ain't going to vote for Penzo. So that affects other know, as long as they're voting in the republican primary anyway, they're going to have an impact. And now we can move on to the state legislative races.
Things have settled down. Okay. Last election year, we had 13 house races in northwest Arkansas. Primaries in northwest Arkansas. Now we've got a grand total of three. And there's various reasons for that. Last year was chaotic year.
The legislative districts were redrawn after the US census. Happens every ten years. A lot of House members ran for vacant Senate seats and stuff like that. And it was a lively year. Now we've got a grand total of three.
And to get started here, one of them is going to be tantamount to election. And that is House District 17 over in Siloam Springs. It's between Jeremy Kreiner and Randy Torres.
There's no independent, there's no last legislative session and a signature by the governor. There are no right in candidate provision for right in candidates anymore. So whoever wins that race is going to the legislature.
And that's one. The.
I said three. I think we've got a grand total of four, but one of them is a democratic primary.
There's a democratic primary up in Rogers House District 15, and there's two candidates there, Stephanie Funk and Aaron Underhill, competing to see who's going to challenge incumbent John Carr in November anyway. But I'm doing all the talking here. Dave, is there a question you wanted to ask in here somewhere?
[00:06:27] Speaker A: Well, and we have one in the river valley as well. Correct.
[00:06:31] Speaker B: First, let me just go from the top then, and mention all of them.
House District 14, that's mainly centerton, a little bit of southwestern Bentonville, and it is between Nick Burks and Joshua Hagen. That's an open seat.
Grant Hodges, the representative, decided he needed to stay home.
And there is a Democrat in that race in November, but that is between Mr. Hagen and Mr. Burke.
Mr. Burke, both are political newcomers. His first race for both of them.
And anyway, to mention the other races before we talk more about that, one Charlene fight, one of the most experienced legislators in the state, has called it quits. She is from Van Buren, but her district includes. She's in the river valley and includes much of Crawford county. And her district, House 24, includes a big chunk of southwestern Washington county. There's a race primary there between Ty Bates and Brad hall. Again, there's a democratic opponent in November in that race.
Now, House District 51 is in southern Fort Smith.
Representative Cindy Crawford is the incumbent there. She's an experienced legislator, and she's running against a businessman named Jeff Burks.
And Mr. Burks is. This is another republican primary. And Mr. Burke says, look, we need some new blood. That's his chief campaign point. Okay, the House District 15 race, I've already mentioned Stephanie Funk versus Aaron Underhill. Both of these are business people. First race for each of them. And they basically say, look, we need a little balance in the legislature. The Republicans are a severe supermajority.
They've got enough, more than enough votes to pass a budget without any democratic input at all. And both of them realize it's going to be a challenge for a Democrat, but they strongly believe something ought to be done. And finally, we have House District 17, which I've already mentioned. That's the one that's tantamount to election in Siloam Springs.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: And your story on that race is coming up this weekend.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Yes, it is. Yes, it is.
Oh, and you wanted to talk about the prosecutors race, too, didn't you?
[00:09:28] Speaker A: Well, we can certainly get to that. Yeah.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: Well, let's go ahead and wrap up the House thing. Go ahead.
[00:09:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm kind of intrigued by that democratic primary in Rogers between Underhill and Funk.
Were you surprised to see democratic primary develop in Ben county?
[00:09:52] Speaker B: Yes, frankly.
Let me take that back. Here's why I'm not as surprised as I'd normally be.
The Democrats have drastically reduced the filing fee for a race.
They go around and they brag about, oh, we've got more candidates than we've ever had. More than we, you know, we've got a majority of the House seats are contested, et cetera, et cetera. They never mentioned when they brag about that, that they dropped the filing fee for a state house seat from could go down, know, pay a filing fee with a debit card, or a lot of people could, and that's all it takes to get in the primary. I do not mean to imply in any way that Ms. Funk and Mr. Underhill are not worthy candidates, but it's a whole lot easier to run as a Democrat than it used to be. Whole lot less of a surprised. So I'm not really surprised that we have a democratic primary. I am a little surprised that the democratic primary is in this district.
It's not only a heavily republican district, it's a pretty conservative republican district or has been in the past. That is changing in some ways. I mean, as Ms. Funk made the point in her interview, it's diversifying. People are feeling the bite of housing prices up there, and she thinks it's not as solidly republican as it used to be. Mr. Underhill claims he actually was a Republican until 2021, and he just thought that the party, with its supermajority and all, is going too far and infringing on people's rights, as a quote with that story, has already run. His quote was, look, I'm not going to take your guns or tell you you can't be gay either. So, yeah, that particular position is something that would have been quite republican just a few years ago.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: It is an urban district, though, correct? I mean, it's rock.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, it's heavily.
[00:12:33] Speaker A: And I'm blanking on the name of our current representative there.
[00:12:38] Speaker B: Oh, John Carr.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: John Carr, yeah.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: Republican. Roger, like I say, quite conservative. Used to be the chairman of the Benton County Republican Party.
Basically runs on being conservative, on taxing spending, basically wants to cut taxes, reduce spending and such as that. Frankly, hasn't suffered any sort of controversy. It's not like they picked the most vulnerable Republican by any stretch of the imagination.
Yeah.
Like I say, they bit off quite a challenge in here.
There are other democratic candidates and others, but this is the only primary, only one competing for the privilege, so to speak.
[00:13:32] Speaker A: You've talked to all these candidates.
What are the issues that are most resounding?
[00:13:42] Speaker B: Everybody wants to see the state income tax go down. And I will say this, everybody I've talked to, though, is also realized that's going to require some caution. I haven't had anybody in any of these primaries say, oh, we need to cut, just whack the income tax. We don't need it anymore. As several candidates have pointed out, if you're not careful, you wind up cutting a state tax and cutting what the state tax goes to, like education, and the net result is going to be the local school district is going to have to raise its property taxes, and you don't want that.
So, yeah, that's the main thing people are talking about. Immigration comes up, even though that's clearly a federal issue, but they want to basically do something about the fallout of it.
A lot of talk about fentanyl and such as that. But, yeah, that's basically it. There's not a whole lot of fire breathing. We got to do this or we got to do that. Drastic action being talked about by any of these folks.
Everyone I've talked to is a reasonable person who'd frankly, by all appearances, do a good will on that issue in the race and Senate that I mentioned Mr. Hagen, as a 42 year old father and family and such as that. And he's arguing that my opponent, Mr. Burks, is a nice young man, but he's just out of college. You ought to send somebody who's been around the track a little bit. He's a realtor, for example, knows the town well.
Mr. Burks, on the other hand, says, hey, I'm an accountant. I'm almost completing the testing. I've got to be a certified public accountant, and I can do budgets.
That's going to be an interesting race. I'm going to keep my eye on that.
I think the fact that Mr. Hagen coaches a little League team is going to be helpful to him in that race. He knows a lot of parents, so we'll see how that goes. Mr. Hagen also made a very interesting point at a republican meeting candidate forum recently when he said, look, Democrats are playing the long game. They want to take Benton county back. Of course, Benton county has been republican since the 1980s, but I'm going to say, you can argue that it's not really possible and there's not much prospect of it. I wouldn't.
But whatever you think the possibilities are doing, he's not wrong.
Democrats are looking at making headway in a rapidly urbanizing and diversifying district.
You and I both raised our eyebrows when we saw a projection that Bentonville is going to have 244,000 people within the, what was it, 2045? Something like that.
[00:17:27] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:17:28] Speaker B: And it's like, holy cow. But, yeah, it's not a sleepy little company town anymore. It's not a safe haven. And Mr. Hagen, whether you knew it or not, echoed something that was said at a republican Lincoln day dinner. I heard from a longtime Republican saying, look, this town is not the same. It is changing.
And many years ago, I asked fellow who's, he's not the democratic party chairman now, but he was the democratic party chairman then. I said, look, why don't you ever even try to put any resources in Benton county? And he dismissed it, said, oh, they're going to go urban anyway. And when they do, they're going to go blue.
So we'll see if that predicts. I still think the republican culture up here is pretty strong and it's not going to be as easy and automatic as some people think it is.
But like I say, you cannot argue with Mr. Hagen's contention that the Democrats are looking to make gains up here, whether they do it this year. We'll see.
[00:18:39] Speaker A: I wanted to ask you, too, about Governor Sanders.
She and her administration and made quite a bit of news last year with the agenda that she enacted, particularly as it relates to the Lawrence act.
Curious to know. I mean, did any of the republican candidates that you talked to have any disagreements at all with Governor Sanders agenda there?
[00:19:19] Speaker B: I'm glad you brought that up. I'm glad you brought that up because I had one of them, I'm hesitant to say which one it was because I don't want to, not attempting to influence the election here. But I've had a couple of them have been quite outspoken that say, look, we've got concerns about the Learns act and its effect on local schools. And when you're hearing that from a republican candidate, that certainly raised my eyebrow.
Public schools in northwest Arkansas, frankly, are pretty good and weakening anything that perceived to be a weakening of those public schools.
Get some caution. I'll go ahead and say that Mr. Hall flat out said that, look, the learns act raised the base of the teacher pay for the ones who just got there. But the result was that the experienced teachers are sitting here going, hey, what about us? I mean, the advantage of experience and of extra education like master's degrees and stuff like that, is not conferring an advantage, at least not as big an advantage in pay as it used to.
And that candidate in particular said, look, we need to work on this. We need to make sure that local resources, as they grow, as the district develops economically, needs to go into salaries and benefits for those more experienced teachers.
Now, he didn't say this, but obviously if you're just as good as well off pay wise as being a new teacher, as being a very experienced one, it's a disincentive to staying in it. So, yeah, let's just say I took note of the fact that a couple of these folks said, look, there's some problems with the Learns act that need to be addressed.
So, yeah, that was intriguing to me.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: I want to dive into the prosecuting attorneys race in Ben county, which you are right in. Preview of this election is necessary because former prosecuting attorney Nathan Smith resigned last fall to take a job with Walmart. Now we need to fill the rest of his term, which runs through 2026. And now we've got Brian Sexton and Sarah Phillips vine for the role.
How are those two candidates trying to differentiate themselves?
[00:22:33] Speaker B: Well, they differentiate themselves quite a bit because Mr. Sexton is the chief deputy. He's running on continuity. He said, look, I've got the experience. And he's been a chief deputy for quite a while. And he's saying that, look, I'm the one with experience here. I'm the one who can keep things going.
And he's got the resume, shall we say.
Sarah Phillips says, look, there's some things that need changing. Now, she worked for the prosecuting attorney's office, too, and she worked in sex crimes.
And put an emphasis on speed.
Speed. As far as getting us some things through the process.
I'll spare everybody to details, but sex crimes prosecutions, frankly, don't age more quickly.
It's more urgent to get things done while the case is relatively new and they're among the most difficult. And she points out that, for instance, her argument is one of the ways to relieve jail overcrowding, which is a serious problem in Benton county, is to get people to trial faster. I mean, if you've got a bunch of people sitting in your county jail awaiting trial, unable to make bail, obviously that contributes to overcrowding. So the questions voters, it's a good point, but the questions voters have to ask themselves is, can it be done?
She is working hard. She's knocking doors. I know that for a fact.
But, yeah, Mr. Sexton is, is the experienced one, and his opponent is, frankly, making the needs new blood argument.
It's a very responsible position. The county gets bigger every day.
You know, there's, there's, it is becoming more and more urban. And whenever anything's getting more and more urban, you have more and more.
So, and let's not dismiss the rest of the rural parts of the county.
Benton county is an interesting, as we say in the newsroom, sometimes this is a different world. On the other side of the lake, you have the problems of a major urgent, what accounts in Arkansas as a major urban center, and you have rural areas, law enforcement, property crimes and such, which is, let's just say that you work in Benton county as prosecutor. You see all kinds of crime in all kinds of, you know, you mentioned that the current prosecuting attorney went and got a job at Walmart. That happens a lot in Benson county.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: Previous.
[00:25:58] Speaker B: You can attract good people, but you got to keep them.
[00:26:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:01] Speaker B: So we'll see how that goes.
[00:26:03] Speaker A: And just to touch on it and I know you didn't write about it. Actually, our reporter Ron Wood is doing the story this weekend on the district judges race in Washington county between Mark Scalise and Taylor samples. And so I just wanted to mention that as another race that's out there for our listeners as well know, the Supreme Court, Arkansas Supreme Court chief justice, as well as position two on the Supreme Court. There are races for both.
Four lined up for chief justice and two for position two on the court.
Those are all, I believe. Correct me if I'm wrong, this is the election, right? Yes, for those spots.
[00:27:03] Speaker B: Now, it's a weird system.
Several years ago, they made judicial elections nonpartisan.
But what you didn't want to, the county clerks from around the state said, look, we don't want to have to have a runoff election all the time. So they made the primary the election for nonpartisan races. And that way, when you have a runoff, as you almost always do in a lot of these races, especially for the Supreme Court, when you have a runoff, it's held during the November general election.
And that way nobody has to go to the extra time, expense and bother of having a runoff for a judicial race. And that's why they did it that way.
Saves the taxpayer money and such as that. But, yeah, there's definitely going to be, I mean, there's four candidates in the supreme court chief justice race, and there's going to be a runoff in that race.
Maybe I'm wrong. I don't even kept up with that race, and it is a statewide race.
[00:28:23] Speaker A: But you never know.
[00:28:24] Speaker B: That would be interesting.
[00:28:26] Speaker A: And those candidates, for the record, are Karen Baker, J. Martin, Barbara Webb and Rhonda Wood for the chief justice slut. And in position two, it's Courtney Hudson and Carlton Jones.
[00:28:42] Speaker B: Okay, thank you.
[00:28:44] Speaker A: So just want to get that out there.
Doug, is there anything else you want to add that we haven't mentioned?
[00:28:57] Speaker B: I'll go ahead and add this.
As I mentioned, 85% of the primary winners in the last figures for the several years that I've checked, 85% of them go on to win the general election. I mean, for all practical purposes. Let me just get to the point here.
Your legislature is largely elected in the primaries.
Okay? There are very few true competitive districts between Republicans and Democrats, even the democratic seats the nominee is going to win. The Democratic Party's nominee is going to win. In most of those districts in the state, the republican nominee is going to win.
There are exceptions, but not many.
So, yeah, if you want a real say in who your state representative is, you're just going to have to go vote particularly.
Yeah, that's it. I could elaborate on that, but I'd really be getting into the weeds and I'm going to avoid that because if you want to influence, this is the one to go to. Early voting, of course, starts on February the 20th, and the primary date itself is March the fifth.
I'm going to express some sympathy for candidates who have to get around and knock doors before in February, but there's plenty of people willing to do it. And yeah, it being a presidential election year and us and Arkansas wanted to get on that Super Tuesday action, they decided in presidential election years we have a primary in go get. Have some sympathy for these poor people who are having to go out, know rain and snow and what have you and campaign because they want your vote.
[00:31:22] Speaker A: Absolutely.
Doug, pleasure as always, talking with you.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: Thank you. Pleasure talking to you.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: We're going to take a quick break and then we'll be right back with an interview with Kimmeth Dennison, who is Ben County's election coordinator. Stick with us.
[00:31:40] Speaker C: If you're enjoying this podcast, consider a newspaper subscription to the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette or the River Valley Democrat Gazette. We have a special offer for our podcast listeners, so visit nwanline.com nwapodcast to get started. You can also click the subscribe button on our websites, nwanline.com and rivervalleddemocratgazette.com, or call us at 479-684-5509 and be sure to say that you're a podcast listener. Now back to the show.
[00:32:11] Speaker A: Kim Denison is coordinator of Ben County's elections. I had the opportunity to talk with her just the other day and about the upcoming primary election and preparations for it and what voters need to know before they go to vote. Here's our conversation. Kim, is there anything new people should know about this time around before they walk into a polling place?
[00:32:39] Speaker D: We don't really have anything new that's been put into place for the voters, but they do need to remember to bring a photo id with them. If that photo id is going to be a driver's license, it just needs to be issued by the state of Arkansas to make sure that they can vote a regular ballot on election day.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: And what about for those of you actually in charge of putting on these elections, what new rules are in place for you?
[00:33:13] Speaker D: We had a lot of paperwork that came out of the last legislative session that we're going to have to implement. So not just on our end, but our poll workers. The voters won't see any of that pertain to them, but just checks and balances all the way around.
[00:33:33] Speaker A: Okay.
And the Bend county election commission moved recently. Can you tell us about that and what are the biggest impacts for you guys?
[00:33:43] Speaker D: We did move. We're just about a mile on the road from where we. It's just been great for the election commission. We have all of our stuff under one location. Now, the last place we had a couple of different separate rooms that we had it spread out in. Now it's all in one spot. And so we're very blessed to be able to have a standalone building that we don't share with any other offices. And we're loving it over here.
[00:34:14] Speaker A: Do you have a rough idea of how many voters you're going to be seeing in this primary election?
[00:34:20] Speaker D: Primaries typically bring about a 30% turnout, and we're really hoping to see at least that, if not more. Every election we prepare for, we really prepare for 100% voter turnout. So the work on our end is just as much as it would be for 100% turnout versus a 30% turnout either way. So we really would like to see the numbers increase if we could get voters out to vote.
[00:34:51] Speaker A: One of the biggest challenges or potential pitfalls you face when it comes to pulling off an election of this magnitude.
[00:35:01] Speaker D: With this one specifically, I believe the hardest part is that the primary falls in March, and normally it's in May, but for presidential years, it falls in March. The biggest problem with that is working around holidays, trying to get all of our poll workers trained in smaller class sizes so that it's more feasible for them to understand what we're talking about. And you don't get too many people in there at once.
Just the weather. That is another thing that we're bouncing around constantly because you just don't know what the weather is going to do at this time.
As far as the larger election, I've been doing this for 13 years, so it just kind of comes natural to me at this point in making it happen and making sure I'm following all of the rules and the laws that are set forth by the state of Arkansas. If anybody needs a copy of their sample ballot, there is a link. We have a Betten county webpage, vote bettencountyar. Gov. And on there you can find everybody that filed for offices at the local level. You can find a link to be able to get your sample ballot to verify if you're registered to vote. Still, one of the things that I hear a lot is do I have to register for every election and you don't. Once you've registered to vote, you stay registered until you haven't voted in four years. So if you voted in the last presidential election, you are still registered to vote and make sure you get out there and cast your ballot. Benton county is also vote centers.
We went to vote centers quite a few years ago, which means you can go to any polling location that is open early voting or election day to cast your ballot. You don't have to go to one specific location anymore.
[00:37:14] Speaker A: Again, that was Kim Denison, Ben County's election coordinator.
Want to tell you about some of the other stories we have coming your way this weekend in the Democrat Gazette.
We'll be publishing bios of candidates in contested races for Ben County Quorum court seats, as well as Crawford County Quorum Court, all in the republican primary. You'll find those bios, along with links to videos about each race in Sunday's editions of the northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette and the River Valley Democrat Gazette.
Want to share a preview of some other stories as well?
Cities throughout northwest Arkansas are experiencing increased tourism, ticket sales and engagement with local, regional and national talent in the music industry. Leah Fletcher will have that story.
The Washington County Road Department plans to pave nearly 200 miles of county roads in 2024. Tom Sissam will have a story on that, turning to the river valley, now a native of Ukraine who's set to graduate from the Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine this spring, was selected for a prestigious internship with NASA. Thomas Ascenti reports and Monica Brick attended Fort Smith Mayor George McGill's State of the city address. On Thursday, she'll report on what the mayor had to say, as well as how others reacted to the speech. This Sunday's WhatsApp section is again chock full of entertainment news specific to our region. Just a couple of examples. Monica Hooper will have a preview of the musical comedy company coming to the Walton Arts center next week, and Becca Martin Brown will tell us about the upcoming great Northwest Arkansas model train show coming to the Benton County Fairgrounds.
And of course, we'll have all the sports coverage you could ask for, from high school to college to the pros. All this and more will be available to our subscribers on our tablet and smartphone apps and at our websites nwaonline.com and rivervalleydemocratcazette.com.
Know the news is a weekly podcast brought to you by the newsrooms of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette and River Valley Democrat Gazette. Again, I'm Dave Perozic, your podcast host this week. Thank you. As always for listening. And don't forget to check us out next Friday for the next know the news. Until then, have a great weekend and take care, everybody.
