Northwest Arkansas lost control of the state Republican Party, I wrote three weeks ago. Author and researcher Jay Barth, a professor at Hendrix College, saw this as soon as I did. He also added up the numbers.
"In 2006, fully one-third of Republican primary votes came from two counties in Northwest Arkansas: Benton and Washington," Barth wrote in the Arkansas Times. "Four years later, the proportion of primary votes from those counties had dropped to one in four. This May, Benton and Washington counties accounted for just over 16 percent of GOP primary votes."
Barth was more right than he knew. Since he wrote that, we've had a runoff in the GOP primary for attorney general. Now there's the kind of race that draws only the most devoted voters. The Benton-Washington county share fell to less than 13 percent.
Barth noted several big change factors. The biggest is the growth of "doughnut" Republican towns around Little Rock. There were also big GOP gains in rural counties stretching from the southwest to the northeast, particularly in the northeast.
This shift away from clear Northwestern leadership for the state GOP has some deep consequences. First and most obviously, it made a GOP majority possible. I'd argue it also put rural voters back in the driver's seat, and that all GOP voters are not the same.
The biggest conservative in Rogers agrees more with the biggest liberal in Little Rock on the core issues of state government -- schools, roads, taxes, health, higher education, etc. -- than either does with most rural voters. Now that Northwest Arkansas is big enough, the two populations centers would run the state if they teamed up. Yet they won't.
Northwest Arkansas is Republican. Little Rock is Democratic. Rural voters decide who wins. This has always been true in our state, even when that rural voter was a Democrat. The countryside has now smoothly and successfully asserted itself in the new majority party, just like they used to do in the old one.
So the more things change, the more they remain the same, right? No. There used to be a higher floor to our conservatism. Not any more. That requires some explaining. In fact, that will require a whole other column. Today I'll stick to the purely partisan issue of what Democrats can do to shake the new majority, if anything. Not much, in my view.
Barth points out that GOP gains were notable in the northeast. Allow me to quote a column of mine from August: "Arkansas Democrats are struggling to come back from thrashings in 2010 and 2012. That struggle is over if they lose northeast Arkansas.
"Democrats have lost much of rural Arkansas, especially in the south. Northwest Arkansas, broadly defined, is largely Republican now. Greater Little Rock's Democratic base is largely offset by bedroom communities around it. That makes Jonesboro and other portions of the east vital."
For years, Democrats benefited from regional resentments. Republicans were Northwest Arkansas folks or the Chenal Valley crowd in Little Rock, or so the prejudices said. Walmart killed your rural county seat's downtown businesses, the story went, not your small town's inability to attract businesses or even people. These grudges used to help Democrats keep a majority in a conservative state.
The regional divides still exist. Now, though, they're not nearly so wide as the divide between conservative voters and the national Democratic Party. Now our rural conservatives find themselves much more comfortable with Northwestern Republicans on the close-to-the-bone social issues. That comfort will be greatly enhanced by this last primary. The rural voter now knows that being Republican doesn't mean living under Northwest corner control.
Hillary in 2016 can't save state Democrats in such a situation, even if she can still win this state. This year, it's going to be interesting to watch Democrats campaign on class divisions after Democratic state lawmakers voted to pass the GOP's state health care plan, then trumpeted it as a model for the rest of the nation.
Barth's most intriguing argument is that Northwest Arkansas could turn more Democratic. Jobs for Northwest Arkansas-based companies are becoming technologically sophisticated. The people moving here to fill those jobs include a "creative class" that helps "support the emerging cultural offerings orbiting the mammoth Crystal Bridges Museum complex." These creative types tend to vote Democratic.
Circumstances permitting, I'll consider his argument next week. I'll contend this change won't happen soon, if at all.
DOUG THOMPSON IS A POLITICAL REPORTER AND COLUMNIST FOR NWA MEDIA.
NW News on 06/15/2014