Arkansas Democrats looked for a silver lining Tuesday night, cite legislative gains
Grant Tennille and Jannie Cotton, chair and vice chair of Arkansas' Democratic delegation during a press call to discuss the group's endorsement for Vice President Kamala Harris on July 23, 2024. (Screenshot)
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Deep down the Democrats gathered for an election night watch party at the Wyndham Riverfront Hotel knew their chance of celebrating victories on Tuesday was a long shot.
But party chair Grant Tennille and candidates for Congress Marcus Jones and Rodney Govens and others tried to find a silver lining in higher than expected numbers and state legislative victories.
"For those of you keeping score at home, for the first time in 20 years, the Democrats have added legislative seats," Tennille said to a room full of cheering, hopeful Democrats. "This is down to great candidates and the great people in this room who worked tirelessly to turn out the vote."
When the party ended at 11 p.m., most left clinging to hope that Vice President Kamala Harris would somehow pull off a win in the presidential race. But by 3 a.m., it became obvious that Donald Trump was pulling off upsets in battleground states like Pennsylvania. By Wednesday morning, he'd added the stunning win in Wisconsin, which resembled his surprising victory in 2016, when he shocked the American establishment by defeating Democrat Hillary Clinton after pollsters had predicted she would emerge victorious in that election.
When asked for his reaction, Tenille said he was "regrettably conscious" the national results coming in are "not going too well. And we're having the best night we've had in 20 years. That may be in the face of a huge disaster nationally."
Since the realignment in the country after the first Black president was elected in 2008, when "that didn't sit well with a lot of people," Tennille said, "a lot of we've been doing is trying to reintroduce ourselves to a population that has been so neglected, and in some cases abused, that trying to convince them that voting is worth their time and effort is a challenge."
In many of the races in Arkansas, he said, Democratic candidates avoided going negative, focusing instead on kitchen-table issues and the real economic and environmental concerns expressed by voters instead of engaging in divisive rhetoric.
But when asked how much of a factor the troubles of his party could be blamed on the disintegration of factual reporting, the death of local newspapers, people turning to partisan radio and cable television, and the rise of social media in the national and local information system, he acknowledged the power of the trends.
"I think it's an enormous factor," Tennille said.
Some candidates still clamored for the endorsement of the state's once most-read and powerful newspaper, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which has seen its print and digital circulation decline so much that it is hardly a factor anymore.
"Most of them don't understand, that purely on a numbers basis, that endorsement is not worth anything compared to what it used to be," he said.
When he went to work for the Democrat-Gazette in 1992, he said, it had one million daily readers.
"Do you know how many daily readers it has now? Thirty thousand," he said. That includes digital.
By 10 p.m., Marcus Jones, a retired Army Colonel who ran a strong campaign for Congress in the Second District, made his concession speech and was trying to get in touch with his opponent, French Hill. The final results show Hill won 59% to 41% for Jones.
Jone thanked everyone for the hard work, and vowed to come back again in two years, urging people not to give up and continue to work and vote.
"Vote like your daughter's life depends on it," he said. "Because in Arkansas, it does."
Rodney Govens, who ran against entrenched MAGA Republican Rick Crawford in the First District, spoke earlier before the results were known.
He acknowledged that he sensed "anxiety" in the room. He said the problem is, Democrats in Arkansas "just don't vote. That's the big deal."
But vowing to come back and try again in two years, he said: "There's good people all over Arkansas. We just need to make sure every vote is counted."
When the race was called, Govens got 24% of the vote to Crawford's 73%, with Libertarian Steve Parson garnering 3%.
Govens acknowledged a lack of money made it hard to run a successful campaign against a well-funded incumbent. But he said he outperformed expectations, and still believes things are changing for the better in Arkansas.
"Things are changing," he said. "But the wheels turn slow."
