2019 Arkansas House of Delegates Special Elections
On November 1, 2019, the second round of four special House of Delegates elections were held in Arkansas. In June of 2019, the Dixie Supreme Court struck down the 4 districts because of discrimination against francophones in Southeast Arkansas. The Court order the AR state legislature to
redraw the four districts and to hold special elections for the districts as soon as possible. The new map of the districts included a francophone majority district and one now much more National Party friendly district (all 4 previously had Unionist incumbents). The
first round of the special elections was held in October and had all four Unionist incumbents proceeding with 3 National challengers and one PLL challenger in the now francophone majority district.
6th District
In the 6th district, Unionist incumbent Mike Ross of Nevada County defeated AR State Delegate Sonia Barker of King County. The 6th is the most Unionist of the 4 districts and the one that Mitch Landrieu won by the largest margin in 2018. Ross who serves as a member of House leadership as Chair of the Unionist Policy Committee comfortably defeated Barker carrying 9/10 counties in the district, however his 9 point win over Barker is his closest election since he was first elected to the House in 2000. Ross also carried the 6th by a smaller margin than Landrieu 1 year earlier. This is largely attributed to the low turnout in the special elections. Barker only carried one county in the election which includes her district in the AR House.
7th District
In the 7th district, Parti La Louisiane member Jean Bergeron of Lincoln County (who started the suit that led to the Supreme Court case in the first place), defeated incumbent Eddie Cheatham of Ashley County. Bergeron ran in the old 7th district in both 2015 and 2018 as the PLL nominee but failed to make the 2nd round in both cases. Bergeron performed best unsurprisingly in the higher French-speaking areas in the center of the district. Cheatham did the best with the higher Anglo areas in the South and Northeast of the district. Bergeron's win was mostly attributed to his surprising strength in Alcorn County, the largest in the district by population and includes most of the city of Bonneville. With his win, Bergeron became the first PLL member to hold federal office in Arkansas.
8th District
In the 8th district, Unionist incumbent Phil Reynolds of Woodruff County was defeated by AR State Delegate Johnathon Dismang of White County. This district was changed by the National controlled AR State Legislature to be much more National than its predecessor. Some of the more heavily Unionist parts of this district were moved to the 7th while the very National Lonoke County was moved into the 8th. Even though Reynolds would win the non-Lonoke parts of the district by 21 votes, the inclusion of Lonoke would be enough to swing the election toward Dismang.
14th District
In the 14th district, Unionist incumbent Reginald Murdock of St. Francis County defeated Cross County Commissioner Ronald Caldwell. The 14th is the district that changed the least in its redrawing and the Unionist-favored district only moved slightly to the right with the redraw. Murdock would perform best in the more heavily black areas of the district. Caldwell would carry is home county of Cross and would do well in the newly added Independence and Jackson Counties, handily winning the former and only narrowly loosing the latter.
With the loss of two districts in the special elections, the Unionists go from 192 seats in the House to 190 shrinking their 4-seat majority to only 2. The Nationals gain from 143 seats to 144 and the PLL from 16 seats to 17.