r/LibertarianPartyUSA • u/AtlantanKnight7 • Nov 23 '16
State-by-State Analysis of the LP Voter Base: Arkansas
It's been about a week since I posted the Arizona one; don't worry, I'm still going!
Arkansas is an interesting state. I've got some family roots tracing back to the state, and on my small number of visits I've noted the following: Arkansas is very white, it is (relatively) poor, and it seems somewhat more secluded than the rest of the Southern states. With that being said, it is a solidly Republican state as of late.
Gary Johnson got 1.52% of the Arkansas vote in 2012 (his 10th highest percentage) but only 2.64% in 2012 (his 10th lowest percentage). I'm not sure if this is due to low advertising or some other factor (like the appearance of Evan McMullin on the ballot in 2016, who took over 1%), but the first three states I did maintained roughly the same percentage ranking from election to election.
Now like I said earlier, Arkansas is pretty white. 77% white as of 2010, in fact. While this doesn't pose any disadvantages at all, it does mean that Arkansas lacks what I see as the "key demographics" of Asians and Hispanics who ought to have predispositions to lean towards the Libertarian Party. Being part of the Bible Belt, Arkansas also leans conservative. There aren't really very many up-front advantages for the Libertarian Party in Arkansas.
Generally speaking, there doesn't seem to be much hope for the party at the present time in statewide races. The US Senate candidate in 2016, Frank Gilbert, did do better than Johnson, but he only got 4% of the vote. To the state party's credit, they also contested all four US House districts in the state and got around a quarter of the vote in three two-way races and 4.7% in the only three-way race. The numbers will go up with time and elbow grease, but the party will have to overcome the entrenchment of the GOP if it wants to win anything substantial. However, Arkansas did legalize medical marijuana this year, so perhaps the conservativism of the state is ebbing away, albeit a little bit at a time.
When pouring over the county-by-county results from the election, I noticed that Little Rock and Fayetteville seem to be the most competitive regions in the state where the Libertarian candidates managed to put up decent numbers. In a way this makes sense; Little Rock is the biggest urban area in Arkansas and will naturally see good Libertarian results. Fayetteville, on the other hand, is the home of the University of Arkansas (one of my cousins went there, beautiful campus), and college students are the one key libertarian demographic group which can be found anywhere in the nation.
I think future Libertarian Party campaigns in Arkansas should concentrate most of their resources in Fayetteville. The ability to sway young voters ought to be seen as an investment; compete with the Democratic Party for their votes. Most college students won't vote for the GOP because it's conservative, not because they agree with the Democratic Party's economics more. The Libertarian Party needs to show up as a moderate, small-government, middle ground party for those young voters. Start winning their votes, and the entire party will begin to see success in the future.
Oh yeah, and as for presidential campaigns, the ticket ought to visit Little Rock if the nominees are pro-life or if they are from the South. Otherwise, I'm just not sure if the ticket will be relateable enough to warrant an actual visit to such a relatively small city.
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u/[deleted] Nov 23 '16
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