For state's Democrats, tide began turn in '90s

Former Arkansas House Speaker John Paul Capps
Former Arkansas House Speaker John Paul Capps

For most of its history, Arkansas has been a one-party state, so overwhelmingly Democratic that Republicans stood no chance on Election Day.

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Democrat-Gazette file photo

Ken Coon, a Republican candidate for governor in 1974

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Democratic Party of Arkansas Chairman Vince Insalaco

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NWA Democrat-Gazette file photo

Republican Party Chairman Doyle Webb is shown in this file photo.

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Now, it's the Democrats who are outnumbered, and they're fighting to regain the power and influence they once had.

No matter what happens on Election Day, leaders from both parties say, nobody has a monopoly on power anymore.

"I don't think one party will ever be as strong for as long as the Democrats were in the early days," said former Arkansas House Speaker John Paul Capps, a Democrat from Searcy who was a lawmaker for decades.

White ex-Confederates flocked to the Democratic Party after the Civil War. By the time the last federal troops withdrew from the South, Republicans had been vanquished in most of the state.

There were a few pockets of Republicans in the more mountainous areas of the state, particularly in Northwest Arkansas.

But central Arkansas and the Delta were overwhelmingly Democratic.

Support for the Democratic Party was strong early in the 20th century, and it climbed even higher during the Great Depression.

The high-water mark may have been in 1932, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt captured 86 percent of the vote statewide.

Although less lopsided in the following decades, November election party outcomes were never in doubt.

When Capps first arrived at the state Capitol after the 1962 elections, there were no Republicans in the 135-member General Assembly, none in the Arkansas congressional delegation and none holding state constitutional office.

The state hadn't sent a Republican to Capitol Hill in Washington since Reconstruction. It hadn't backed a Republican presidential candidate in nearly 100 years.

While the GOP would occasionally claim a seat or two in the 100-member state House, there hadn't been a Republican elected to the state Senate since before the Great Depression.

Even after Republican Winthrop Rockefeller was elected governor in 1966 -- the same year Republican John Paul Hammerschmidt claimed a seat in Congress -- the Democratic advantage in Arkansas was overwhelming: 97-3 in the House; 35-0 in the Senate.

Rockefeller, a descendant of oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller, spent his own money to build up the state's Republican Party, but the candidates he recruited usually lost.

Even in 1972, with President Richard Nixon, a Republican, sweeping Arkansas and 48 other states, the GOP failed to make advances.

With Rockefeller's death in 1973, the party lost its main benefactor. And by 1974, with the Watergate scandal raging and Nixon resigning in disgrace, the party's defeat in Arkansas was all but inevitable.

Ken Coon, a Republican candidate for governor in 1974, said there wasn't a lot of competition for the GOP nomination when he got it.

"Back in those days, you'd almost draw straws because nobody wanted to run. They knew they were going to lose," he said. "It took a special kind of person to ... run anyway and move the ball down the field."

Republican primaries were practically unheard of, Coon said. It was hard just to find a Republican polling site.

Under Arkansas law, parties were required to conduct and pay for their own primaries, and it was hard to raise the money to open polling places -- especially when there weren't many contested races or large numbers of Arkansas Republicans willing to vote.

In most counties, the number of Democratic voting locations dwarfed the number of Republican sites.

"We'd have one polling place, and they would have 30," Gov. Asa Hutchinson said. In a lot of places, "you'd have to travel 30 miles to go vote in a Republican primary, [but] you could go around the corner and vote in a Democrat primary," he said.

Eventually, the Republican Party of Arkansas challenged the constitutionality of the primary voting system in Arkansas. In 1995, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that the election laws effectively prevented many Arkansans from voting in Republican primaries.

The 1995 ruling gave the Republican Party a boost. So did the voters' decision in 1992 to establish term limits for officeholders.

Democrats who had held office for decades were dislodged once the restrictions took place. Instead of facing longtime incumbents, Republican challengers were able to face Democratic newcomers.

In Arkansas, like in many other Southern states, Republicans made their first sustained breakthroughs on the presidential level when Ronald Reagan carried the state in 1980 and 1984, and George H.W. Bush won comfortably in 1988.

There were other advances, as well.

Frank White defeated Bill Clinton to claim the Governor's Mansion in 1980 before losing in a rematch in 1982. Mike Huckabee won in a special election for lieutenant governor in 1993, rising to governor after Jim Guy Tucker resigned in 1996. That same year, Arkansas voters for the first time elected a Republican, Tim Hutchinson, to serve in the U.S. Senate.

Gains in the General Assembly were gradual.

Starting with one Senate seat and five House seats at the beginning of 1978, Republicans had claimed four Senate and nine House seats by 1988. A decade later, in 1998, there were seven Republicans in the Senate and 14 in the House.

By 2008, they controlled eight Senate and 25 House seats. With the election of Barack Obama as president, the Democratic Party's grip on power in Arkansas began slipping.

By the end of 2012, Republicans had gained majorities in both chambers. They've since remained in control.

"If you have an R by your name, you're just almost automatically elected, and that is such a vast difference from when I began in the early '60s," Capps said. "I think the Democrats will come back, but we have to find people to run that are qualified and can get out and campaign, and meet the people and sell their program. That's what it boils down to."

Democrats realize the landscape has shifted.

"I think now what we have become is a genuine two-party state, and we just have to build back and fight back," said Democratic Party of Arkansas Chairman Vince Insalaco.

After the losses in 2012 and 2014, the party is rebounding, he said.

The number of counties with active Democratic committees is climbing, and membership has risen, he said.

The Democratic message appeals to most Arkansans, he added.

"Whether it's health care, minimum wage, equal pay, [schools], affordable college education, Social Security and Medicare, if you look at all the issues that are our values, people agree with us. They absolutely agree with what we stand for," he said.

Republicans say they're confident that their party reflects the values of most Arkansans.

"The Democrat Party, through the policies of Barack Obama, has been defined as the liberal party, out of touch with Arkansans," Republican Party of Arkansas Chairman Doyle Webb said.

The exodus from the Democratic Party is ongoing, he said.

"I think it's part of a tide that's still moving. I believe they will continue to come in droves to the Republican Party," he said.

Asa Hutchinson, while pleased with the political realignment, said the gains could be erased if Republicans get complacent.

"You can't take winning for granted. Just because we've won and got control doesn't mean that's the way it's going to be next election cycle and the one after that," Hutchinson said.

"If you start taking majority status for granted, you'll lose it very quickly."

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