Democrats control no statewide or federally elected offices in Arkansas, and have minorities in both houses of the state legislature.

Before Arkansas became a state on June 15, 1836, its politics was dominated by a small group commonly called "The Family" or "The Dynasty" until the American Civil War.

[3] On October 27, 1827, Henry Conway was killed in a duel by Robert Crittenden, a former friend that soon became his political opposition.

This was the region of the slaveholding plantations, and swamp Democrats generally voted in the interests of Arkansas planters and merchants.

[6] Republicans such as Governor Powell Clayton were appointed to state office, to the chagrin of Confederate veterans and sympathizers.

Redeemer politicians in Arkansas were typically prominent, landowning, white men of the former planter class, who retained control of soft and hard power through Jim Crow laws, disenfranchisement, and racial violence.

Generally, the period was marked by more individual candidates than the "factions" that defined politics in other Southern states, or a "ruling class" like The Family of early Arkansas.

Governor Harvey Parnell managed to pass reform measures, but was blamed for the Great Depression, and left office extremely unpopular.

Futrell was the most conservative governor elected in decades, with 1932 marking the end of the reform era in Arkansas.

[14] The most notable example was the northwest part of the state's support of George Wallace for President, Republican Winthrop Rockefeller for governor, and Democrat J. William Fulbright for Senate in 1968.

State Senator Gene Jeffress ran as the Democratic nominee for Ross’ seat and lost to Cotton.

Mike Ross, Nate Steel, Karen Sealy Garcia, and Regina Stewart Hampton ran as the Democratic nominees in the 2014 elections and were all subsequently defeated by Republican challengers Asa Hutchinson, Leslie Rutledge, Dennis Milligan, and Andrea Lea.