CENTERTON — Rep. Grant Hodges, R-Centerton, will not seek reelection, he confirmed Thursday.
Filing for partisan offices began Monday and will end Tuesday. Two candidates have filed for the Republican primary for the now-open House District 14 seat. One Democrat also has filed for the seat.
District 14 covers all of Centerton along with much of Highfill and western Bentonville.
Hodges, 33, was first elected in 2014 while living in Rogers. He served three terms, which are two years each in the House. He then left the Legislature after finishing his third term and after getting married. He and his wife started a family and moved to Centerton before he decided to reenter politics in 2022.
The 2022 election was the first after Northwest Arkansas gained four House seats and a state Senate seat thanks to the redrawing of district lines after the 2020 U.S. census. District 14 was one of the new seats gained in Benton County in this process. The larger delegation gave Northwest Arkansas a chance to have a leading role in shaping state policy, Hodges said at the time. He gained the nomination with no primary opposition and defeated a Democratic opponent, Brian Eaton, in the November 2022 election.
Hodges decided to leave office, in part, to “try to raise my two energetic toddlers,” he said in a text. Hodges was also named chief of staff at Northwest Arkansas Community College earlier this year.
Republicans Nick Burkes and Joshua Hagan and Democrat Jacob Malloy had filed to run for the seat by the end of Thursday. Partisan primaries are March 5.