Arkansas was one of the most reliably Democratic states of the 20th century. It voted for Southern Democrats like Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter by large margins. Al Gore lost the state in 2000, but by only a modest five percentage points. When Mark Pryor was first elected senator there in 2002, Arkansas was still fairly fertile ground for Democrats. The son of a Democratic senator, he defeated an incumbent Republican by a comfortable eight points in a good year for Republicans.
Twelve years later, Arkansas vies with West Virginia for the distinction of being the state where Democrats have suffered the greatest losses over the last decade. The fact that Arkansas is even in the discussion for that title is remarkable; the so-called War on Coal created a problem for Democrats in West Virginia coal country that has no equivalent in Arkansas. Nonetheless, President Obama lost Arkansas by 24 points in 2012 — the second-worst performance by a Democratic presidential candidate in the state’s history.
Obama’s Weakness in Arkansas
In 2012, President Obama performed worse in Arkansas than Al Gore did (in 2000) by nearly a 20-point margin. Only in West Virginia did Mr. Obama underperform Mr. Gore by more.
At a time when Democrats are benefiting from demographic changes across the country, particularly in the South, Arkansas is perhaps the best example of a state where demographics are working against them. Population trends have eroded the traditional Democratic coalition in Arkansas; the deep unpopularity of President Obama makes it all the harder for a Democrat to reassemble its remnants.
Unlike most states, Arkansas drew its Democratic strength from the countryside, in the culturally Southern eastern part, where a modest-size black population and residual support among conservative white Democrats gave the party a path to victory. Part of the reason for the severity of recent Democratic losses is simply that there were more conservative, white voters for Democrats to lose.
Republicans have long held strength in the state’s conservative metropolitan areas, which have experienced explosive population growth over the last decade. In contrast with Florida, Virginia or North Carolina, in Arkansas the growing metropolitan counties are not attracting a significant number of Democratic-leaning, nonwhite, non-Southern or young voters. Instead, they are attracting new Republicans, who could overwhelm the traditionally Democratic countryside — if Democrats ever won back those voters.
Population growth is centered in the conservative exurbs of Little Rock and in the urbanized stretches of the traditionally Republican Ozarks of northwest Arkansas, in Washington and Benton Counties, Bentonville, where Wal-Mart is based, and Fayetteville. The white exurban counties ringing Little Rock — Saline, Faulkner and Lonoke — grew by 30 percent over the last decade, and their combined population now rivals that of slower-growing and traditionally Democratic Pulaski County, where Little Rock is. The combined population of Benton and Washington Counties grew by 45 percent since 2000 — roughly the same as Wake County, home of North Carolina’s capital, Raleigh.
But these areas are nothing like Raleigh, and they’re mainly attracting white migrants from elsewhere in the South. As a result, none of these counties have moved toward the Democrats. President Obama fared worse there in 2012 than either John Kerry or Al Gore.
Making matters more challenging for Democrats is that the rural, Democratic-leaning parts of the state have suffered significant population losses over the last decade. The biggest declines have been in the most heavily Democratic majority-black counties along the Mississippi River.
In Arkansas, Republican Areas Boom; Democratic Areas Shrink
The state’s Republican-leaning areas have had significant population growth since 2000; the state’s Democratic-leaning areas have suffered steady population losses.
The state’s most Democratic and black county, Phillips, exemplifies this trend. Phillips County gave Mark Pryor 65 percent of the vote in 2002, but its population shrank by 18 percent over the last decade — the second-largest decline in the state.
When Mr. Pryor first won his Senate seat, the five fast-growing Republican-leaning metropolitan counties held 19.9 percent of the state’s population. They now hold 25.6 percent of it. Democratic-leaning counties where Mr. Pryor received at least 60 percent of the vote now represent just 21.5 percent of the population, compared with 23.4 in 2000.
And the voters who remain in these Democratic-leaning areas are not as Democratic as they once were. Not only have many decidedly turned against the national Democratic Party, but a large percentage of the most Democratic voters have left the electorate. The so-called Greatest Generation of older voters, who came of age when Dixiecrats still reigned in the South, were the most reliably Democratic cohort in Arkansas. Voters over 65 even voted for John Kerry, according to the exit polls.
The “Greatest Generation,” people who were young adults during the World War II era, represented 11 percent of voters nationally in 2002, according to the Current Population Survey. Now in their late 80s or older, they represented just 2.4 percent of the electorate in 2012. The broader group of voters who were at least 65 years old in 2002 represented 23 percent of voters in that election, but now at age 75 or older had shrunk to just 9 percent of the vote in 2012.
Arkansas Election Preview »
Largely taking the place of the “Greatest Generation” as the oldest voter group is the so-called Silent Generation, people born roughly from the mid-1920s to the mid-1940s. These voters are far less attached to the Democrats, and although their longtime memories of Mark Pryor and his father will allow Mr. Pryor to fare far better than President Obama did, it is hard to imagine that Mr. Pryor could run up the score among older voters the way he could have a decade ago — even if he were just as popular and even if national conditions were just as favorable. The rise of the Silent Generation is a big part of why Democrats struggle more with midterm elections than they did a decade and a half ago.
Many of these pro-Republican trends exist in other Southern states. But in Arkansas, there are virtually no trends working in the direction of Democrats.
The white share of the electorate barely declined at all between 2004 and 2012, falling from 84.1 to 83 percent, according to the census’ Current Population Survey. It’s possible that the actual decline was greater, but it is nonetheless clear that the Arkansas electorate has not become significantly more diverse over the last decade, even though the white share of the voting-eligible population has declined modestly.
Given those trends, Mr. Pryor would be hard pressed to win re-election in Arkansas today, even under better circumstances. That 2014 is an off-year election with the incumbent Democratic president extremely unpopular in Arkansas only makes matters worse.
Democrats say that Mr. Pryor still has a credible path to victory. But the polls don’t really show it: Mr. Pryor is stuck in the low to mid-40s, trailing Mr. Cotton by a modest but consistent margin. Very few candidates — let alone Democrats running in a state as conservative as Arkansas — manage to come back from numbers like these.
To the extent that the polls offer any cause for Democrats to be optimistic, it is that some have shown Mr. Pryor faring much better among registered voters than likely voters. Some surveys even show Mr. Pryor ahead among registered voters. If Mr. Pryor does indeed lead among registered voters — which is not at all clear — then Democrats can hope that a strong turnout operation could get many of these voters to the polls.
It is a glimmer of hope, but not a bright one: Leo, The Upshot’s Senate forecasting model, gives Mr. Pryor a 24 percent chance of winning.