Tom Cotton may very well win reelection. This is Arkansas, after all, and Republicans have dominated statewide elections for more than a decade.
But Cotton has a problem that shouldn’t be ignored.
A new Talk Business & Politics–Hendrix College poll has Democrat Hallie Shoffner at 47.7% and Cotton at just 44%.
Maybe the poll is an outlier. Another recent poll has Cotton comfortably ahead, and nobody should pretend one survey predicts what will happen in November.
But forget for a moment about who’s ahead.
Look at Cotton’s 44%.
Tom Cotton isn’t an unknown candidate. Arkansans have had plenty of time to decide what they think of him. He served two years in the U.S. House and has represented Arkansas in the Senate since 2015. He’s one of the most recognizable Republican senators in Washington.
And this is Arkansas—not Pennsylvania, Michigan or Wisconsin.
An established Republican senator in this state should not be sitting at 44% in a credible Arkansas poll.
Maybe Cotton ultimately wins by 15 points. Maybe he wins by 20.
But when you’ve spent 12 years representing one of the reddest states in America and a poll finds that fewer than half its voters are ready to send you back to Washington, that’s worth noticing.
Arkansans know Tom Cotton. That may be precisely the problem.
Odds & Ends 019
