Education, presidential election, “retail politics” influence Arkansas House District 62 rematch

Arkansas state Rep. Mark McElroy, R-Tillar (left) and Democrat Dexter Miller of Helena West-Helena (right) are competing in a rematch for House District 62. (Courtesy photos)

Mark McElroy said he’s been driving 100 miles one way to campaign for another term in the Arkansas House of Representatives. He’s facing Democrat Dexter Miller, a rematch of the District 62 race that was decided by 197 votes two years ago.

Residents of McElroy’s Delta district are more familiar with him than they were in 2022 when he sought to represent communities like Helena-West Helena, Wheatley and Marianna for the first time after redistricting, he said.

“The way I campaign is I sit on the curb on my bicycle and look homeless,” the Tillar Republican said. “That was my trademark down here [in Southeast Arkansas], but up there nobody knew me because they thought I was homeless, so they’d bring me food or try to offer me money.

“And then,” he laughed, “they’d find out I was a politician and try to run over me.”

Even so, Delta voters tend to appreciate candidates who campaign by approaching them directly, especially a candidate who has driven hours to see them, said Kevin Smith, a former Democratic state senator and former mayor of Helena-West Helena.

“Arkansas is such a rural state that people still want to see you, and if they don’t see you, they think you might not want it that much and that you might not work that hard,” Smith said.

McElroy entered the 2022 election cycle as a four-term incumbent representing Desha and Chicot counties and part of Ashley County. He previously served as a Desha County justice of the peace and county judge.

The newly-drawn legislative districts of the 2022 election put McElroy in a constituency made up of the entirety of Lee and Phillips counties and portions of Desha, Arkansas, Monroe and St. Francis counties.

Phillips County election officials struggle to report results to Secretary of State

Then-Rep. Reginald Murdock, D-Marianna, ran for the Senate and left the path clear for a new Democratic candidate: Miller, a public school teacher and hospital board member from Helena-West Helena, who defeated Kellee Mitchell Farris in the party’s primary both this year and in 2022.

Miller requested a recount in Phillips County following 2022’s close race and said officials’ struggles to report election results to the state led him to think something was wrong with the initial vote totals.

The recount did not change the overall results. The State Board of Election Commissioners will monitor Phillips County’s election proceedings this year, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.

Two years later, Miller still thinks the region’s and particularly Phillips County’s history of leaning Democratic should have worked in his favor. Miller said one reason he’s running again is because he “just didn’t believe the people of our county wanted to be served by Mark McElroy.”

McElroy earned 58 more votes than Miller in the typically-blue Lee County in 2022, and he received 45% of the Phillips County vote. His path to reelection should include similar or better results in those counties, Phillips County GOP chairman Martin Rawls said.

“If he can break that 45% threshold, I think he’ll be in good shape on election night, but if he falls under that 45% threshold, he might be in trouble,” Rawls said.

McElroy said he is confident he can retain a seat historically held by Democrats.

“There are only two ways to run, scared and unopposed, and I’m running scared and hard,” he said.

Demographics and turnout

Former Rep. David Tollett, R-Marvell, served one House term after running unopposed in 2020. McElroy defeated Tollett in the 2022 GOP primary after they were both drawn into District 62 due to redistricting, the redrawing of legislative district boundaries every decade following the U.S. Census.

McElroy’s general election victory made him the first Republican to win a contested race to represent Phillips and Lee counties in the Legislature since Reconstruction.

Miller’s decision to challenge McElroy again means the race could still be competitive despite the differences between the last election cycle and this one, Rawls said.

“Signs have started popping up everywhere, mailers are going out, phone banks have started, so I think both parties know this is going to be a close race,” he said.

The Delta’s majority-Black population has historically voted Democratic. Smith said having a Black woman, Vice President Kamala Harris, at the top of this year’s Democratic presidential ticket should draw District 62’s Black voters to the polls.

“The last time you saw really heavy turnout was when President Obama was at the top of the ticket [in 2008],” Smith said. “That was a historic election, and this is a historic election. But of course [GOP nominee] Donald Trump has his base too, so I think you’ll have a high turnout.”

Rawls agreed that voter turnout in the presidential race could affect the District 62 race, but he also said voters might support candidates from different parties.

“I think there will be people who vote for Kamala Harris and [her running mate] Tim Walz who also support McElroy,” Rawls said.

Smith said anyone who fills out the presidential portion of the ballot is unlikely to skip over the District 62 rematch. He added that McElroy’s face-to-face campaign strategy presents a challenge to any advantages the presidential race might lend Miller.

“On paper, it looks like it would be a slam dunk for Democrats, but it’s not,” Smith said.

Education

As the representative for the Marvell-Elaine school district, which had 306 students in 2023, McElroy sponsored Act 543 of 2023. The law created exceptions to the Public Education Reorganization Act of 2004, which required schools that had fewer than 350 students for two consecutive years to be consolidated. Act 461 of 2023 eliminated mandatory consolidation.

“If it wasn’t for him passing that bill, the school would be empty right now… I think that’s something that he should totally be able to champion, and the voters of Marvell will remember that,” said Rawls, a Phillips County justice of the peace representing Marvell.

Additionally, Marvell-Elaine became the state’s first transformation campus last year, under a LEARNS Act provision that allows struggling schools to enter into a “transformation contract” with an open-enrollment public charter school or another approved entity. 

McElroy’s support of both Act 543 and the LEARNS Act earned him goodwill with the community, according to McElroy, Smith and Rawls.

Miller acknowledged that the transformation contract could be a good thing for the district and the state.

“They definitely need to try something different and new, and this could be a model moving forward for schools that might be struggling,” he said.

The LEARNS Act also raised minimum teacher pay to $50,000 per year, which Miller said he supported.

Phillips County has a shortage of teachers, and the ones that are there might not have reached a $50,000 salary during their entire careers previously, Rawls said, so the pay raises have helped the region recruit and retain teachers.

Critics of some aspects of the wide-ranging LEARNS Act, including Miller, have said the state should not direct taxpayer money to private schools under the voucher program the law also created.

Phillips County has two private schools but neither participates in the program.

McElroy said he supports allowing parents to choose where their children attend school, especially those living in a district with “failing schools.”

Miller said he was frustrated when McElroy’s campaign sent out a flier criticizing his opinion on school vouchers, especially because Miller and his wife have both worked for Helena-West Helena public schools.

“When you put out a flier with something as harsh as that, [saying] that I want to keep kids in failing schools — of course we care about kids and of course we care about education,” Miller said.

‘Someone that they can relate to’

Last year’s education laws were an exception to the fact that many District 62 residents aren’t necessarily up-to-date on the finer points of state policies, McElroy and Miller both said. Instead, they’re concerned about things that imminently affect their daily lives, such as the quality of roads and drinking water.

Helena-West Helena’s aging water infrastructure led to outages in June 2023 and January 2024. In late July, the state Board of Health gave city officials 90 days to produce a long-range plan to address the issues, including specific infrastructure improvements.

Plan or penalty: The next step in Arkansas city’s path to better water infrastructure

McElroy said he was “instrumental” in securing an $11 million Arkansas Division of Natural Resources loan this year to address some infrastructure needs. He also said he and other lawmakers want to focus on funding more water projects.

Over his legislative career, McElroy has switched party affiliations from Democrat to independent to Republican. He said he believes voters know him primarily as someone who represents them rather than someone attached to a partisan label.

“I think the vast majority of people really just want someone that they can relate to,” McElroy said. “A lot of them are more independent voters [rather] than either party, and I think they get that because they know that I’m approachable when they see me on the side of the road looking pitiful in the sun.”

In September, a Marvell constituent shared an image on Facebook of McElroy campaigning in a storm and said he “doesn’t let a little rain stop him.”

Meanwhile, Miller said McElroy hasn’t been an efficient lawmaker and wasn’t adequately present during Helena-West Helena’s water crisis in January.

“He spends more time on the sidewalk riding his bicycle and waving his sign than at the Capitol where he has a supermajority,” Miller said.

Miller is putting more work into this year’s campaign than he did in 2022, Smith said, but McElroy’s “retail politics” approach goes a long way.

“It’s definitely Dexter’s race to lose, to some respect, but I would say don’t ever count out Mark McElroy because of how hard he campaigns,” Smith said.