Democrat Chris Jones conceded defeat in the race for Arkansas 2nd Congressional District Thursday after two days of vote counting in the tightest race U.S. Rep. French Hill has faced in his political career.
But Jones also took the opportunity to hammer home that the blatant gerrymandering of Arkansas’ congressional districts — painstakingly formulated in 2021 to insulate Hill from a progressive Central Arkansas voting bloc that includes many people of color — looks a lot like a violation of Voting Rights Act. That gerrymander held Tuesday, but just by a hair.
A minister and scientist, Jones ran a campaign championing affordability, healthcare access and a better quality of life for working Arkansans. His platform, with its distinctly local flavor, differed greatly from banker Hill’s priorities, which include protecting the crypto industry, helping big banks raise fees on their customers, blaming Democrats for President Trump’s secrecy about the Epstein files, and making it easier for poor people to die for lack of healthcare.
We don’t know if Hill is humiliated by the herculean efforts it took on the part of fellow Republicans to save his ass this week, or if he’s freaked out that his luck nearly ran out regardless. We certainly hope so.
With Pulaski County already diced up among three of the state’s four congressional districts solely in service to Fancy French and not many conceivable options to help him out further, Hill’s time may soon be up.
Here’s Jones’ press release:
Chris Jones Concedes Arkansas’s 2nd Congressional District Race, Calls on New Congress to Restore the Voting Rights Act
LITTLE ROCK, AR – Chris Jones called Rep. French Hill to congratulate him and concede the race to represent Arkansas’s 2nd Congressional District.
“I’m proud of what we built together,” Jones said. “We talked about what Arkansans are paying for diesel and groceries, whether their hospital will stay open, and whether their congressman answers to them. We went to places that had been overlooked for a long time, and thousands of Arkansans got involved, many of them for the first time. More than 123,000 of you voted for us, we got the closest anybody has ever come to beating Congressman Hill, and we put a crack in that Arkansas glass ceiling.
“Now, this isn’t the outcome we worked for, but being your candidate has been one of the great honors of my life. I’ll carry the stories you shared with me at your kitchen tables for a long time. Thank you.”
Jones continued, “I congratulate Congressman Hill, and I hope he’ll take seriously his responsibility to serve every family in this district, including the families who voted for me. If he wants to work together on lowering costs or keeping our hospitals open, he can call me.”
Jones is also calling on the newly elected majority in Congress to restore the Voting Rights Act.
“I ran for Congress because I wanted to cast a vote to restore the Voting Rights Act. I won’t get to cast it in January, so I’m asking the people who have that opportunity to get it done,”
Jones said. “In 2021, the legislature split Pulaski County into three congressional districts. This spring, the Supreme Court gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, and within weeks, states started breaking up majority-Black districts. It is likely that if this district were not gerrymandered in 2021, today we would have a different result.
The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act has been sitting in committee. To the new Congress: bring it back, update it for what the Court did in April, and pass it in your first hundred days. Then put every member on the record, Congressman Hill included.
“To my fellow Arkansans, I’ll never stop fighting for you because Arkansas will always be my home. I still believe in affordability and accountability for all, and I’ll keep working for it with each of you.”
Jones asked supporters to stay involved. He urged them to:
make sure their provisional ballots are cleared by Monday;
contact the congressman’s office about his votes, including on the John Lewis bill;
check on neighbors who need support;
consider running for local office.