The Nifty Fifty House Party - Part XLV: Arkansas

As the Bullet Train to November nears Election Day, the journey continues to a state that is home to strange regional political bedfellows, a well-recognizable mass merchant, and a town that is perhaps one of the best places to give birth if your baby wants to become President...

ARKANSAS

One of many states derived from the Louisiana Purchase, Arkansas was admitted as the 25th state to the Union on June 15, 1836. Today, Arkansas serves as part of the Bible Belt and is three-quarters Protestant, with 39 percent of Arkansans affiliated with the Baptists. Economically, the state is powered agriculturally by poultry, cattle, rice, eggs and soybeans among others, and also industrially by auto parts factories, food processing (Tyson Foods is based here), tourism, and of course, Wal-Mart. That's right, the world's largest retailer, founded at the hands of retail pioneer Sam Walton in 1962, is based in Bentonville.

There are some interesting facts about this state: some of Arkansas' counties have two county seats, the result of past travel difficulties from generations past, and there are few efforts to eliminate such an arrangement despite dramatic improvements in transportation over generations. Additionally, it is the only state with a law specifying its pronunciation, the result of Kansas residents who pronounced the state as ar-KANSAS instead of the official pronunciation, AR-kan-saw. And the small city of Hope (pop. 10,467) gave the world former Governor and 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, as well as former Governor and 2008 Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who ran a surprisingly strong campaign emphasizing on a socially conservative, economically populist message.

In the modern South, Republicans tend to dominate the political conversation. That is not the case in Arkansas, where Democrats run the show at the state level, with super-majorities in the Arkansas General Assembly, control of most local offices, the Governor's Mansion, both U.S. Senate seats (the only state among the former Confederate states with this distinction) and an overwhelming majority of registered voters. However, Democrats as a whole tend to be more conservative, as it is a social conservative stronghold with 74 percent voting for a gay marriage ban and has proposed legislation banning abortion if Roe v. Wade ever gets overturned. The Republicans perform strongest in the state's northwestern corner around the Fort Smith area and in the north central region around Mountain Home. While it was the only state in the country to give a majority (50 percent) of the presidential vote to one candidate in 1992 (Clinton), George W. Bush won the Natural State by a nine-point margin in 2004. This year, Arkansas' congressional delegation is especially predictable.

District 1 (S-Factor 0.8 DEM): Democrat Marion Berry is unopposed in this district based in the state's northeastern areas including Jonesboro and the Arkansas Delta region. Prediction: Solid DEM.

District 2 (S-Factor 0.5 DEM): While competitive on paper, this Little Rock-centric seat has been a generally easy call for Vic Snyder. Only a Green Party candidate (Deb McFarland) is challenging him. Prediction: Solid DEM.

District 3 (S-Factor 10.8 GOP): This heavily Republican seat, situated in northwest Arkansas including Fort Smith and Fayetteville, makes for a safe seat for incumbent John Boozman. There is only one candidate challenging Boozman: a Green Party candidate in Abel Tomlinson. Prediction: Solid GOP.

District 4 (S-Factor 1.0 DEM): Mike Ross is overwhelmingly favored to win another term in his somewhat split southern Arkansas (Pine Bluff, Texarkana, Hot Springs, El Dorado and of course Hope) district against...you guessed it, a Green Party candidate in Joshua Drake. Prediction: Solid DEM.

Next stop: North Carolina.