CIVPAC has published its current evaluation of the 2026 Arkansas U.S. Senate race between Republican incumbent Tom Cotton, Democrat Hallie Shoffner and Libertarian Jeff Wadlin.
This is an unusually difficult race to reduce to party labels. Cotton brings by far the strongest record of government and national-security experience and deserves credit for rejecting efforts to overturn the 2020 election. But his positions on presidential war powers, emergency tariffs and several consequential Trump administration appointments raise concerns about congressional independence.
Shoffner brings substantial agricultural and small-business experience and is closer to CIVPAC on tariffs and congressional war powers, but her positions on foreign policy, immigration enforcement and several other issues remain insufficiently developed.
Wadlin offers the most detailed independent platform of the three and is surprisingly close to CIVPAC on a number of institutional, trade, immigration and foreign-policy questions. But he has no legislative record, and an important question remains unanswered: with which party, if either, would he caucus in the Senate?
Because Arkansas early voting begins before all of the scheduled debates have taken place, we are publishing our evaluation now rather than waiting. The race remains under review, and we intend to revisit it as the debates provide additional information. In the mean time, we hope this evaluation will help Arkansas voters with a difficult decision.
Read the full Arkansas U.S. Senate candidate evaluation.
See CIVPAC’s complete list of 2026 U.S. Senate endorsements and races under review.
See all of CIVPAC’s 2026 candidate endorsements and evaluations.