Blocked, Excluded, and Disenfranchised (Again): The Battle for the 2026 Arkansas GOP Convention

June 3, 2026

It’s Convention season again for the Republican Party of Arkansas! – which means it’s time yet again for the Republican Establishment to suppress the voice of the people.

This may come as a shock to the typical Republican voter in Arkansas, but for party insiders, it’s becoming a Tale as Old as Time.

Perhaps you recall the 2022 Republican State Convention, at which the establishment blocked Pulaski County’s 71 delegates and 71 alternates from representing the voice of our state capitol (see articles here and here).

Perhaps you recall the 2024 Republican State Convention, at which a grassroots groundswell redefined the Republican Party with 7 Platform Amendments and 7 bylaws changes that rewrote the party as we know it – only to be overturned by an illegal vote of 13 establishment Republicans (see articles here, here, here, here, and here)!

Perhaps you’ll recall the 2025 Republican State Summer Meeting, at which the establishment stuffed the ballot box to win a 10% vote, and then adjourned the meeting with half of the agenda still to go;

And now here we are, three days out from the 2026 Republican State Convention, and the establishment is in fine form!

You may have thought that denying representation to a whole county in 2022 was bad – but this year there have so far been 31 out of 75 Arkansas counties, or around 40%, whom the Republican Establishment has attempted to block from attending and voting at the 2026 State Convention.

In an ordinary convention year, the Republican Party’s “leadership” would reach out to counties and remind them to hold their own conventions to elect state delegates. They would remind them to send their delegate lists to party leadership and hold training sessions to help new chairmen and secretaries understand how to run a county convention, and what to do afterwards.

Perhaps some counties received such instruction, but as of May 15^th, 13 counties did not even know they were supposed to hold conventions. Another 16 counties had held conventions, and sent in their lists of delegates – only to be told that they had “missed the deadline” for sending in delegate names – some by as little as 18 hours.

While five of the blocked counties have since persuaded Republican leadership to add their delegates to the convention roll, there are at this date still 26 counties who may have no representation at the biennial convention of the Republican Party this Saturday.

But why all the rigmarole (rig-the-roll), you might ask?

Article I Section 1B of the Rules of the Republican Party of Arkansas states:

“The final authority in all party matters shall rest in the biennial Republican State Convention”

This little line has caused no end of headache for the handful of people who see themselves as the Rulers of Arkansas. While elected officials such as the Governor and state legislators enjoy automatic membership on many other committees within the party, they cannot keep their tight-fisted control when it comes to the party’s “final authority.”

The state convention is the one Republican body elected broadly and directly by the people of Arkansas through county conventions, and made up of hundreds of ordinary Arkansans.

If you’ve done some quick arithmetic, you might have noticed that the counties which are still blocked ought to add up to only 25 counties, not 26, based on the categories described above.

The 26^th county is being blocked from the convention roll for an entirely different reason.

Washington County (Fayetteville) has 55 delegates – the largest number elected by any county – nearly all of whom do not support the methods of the current Republican establishment. The establishment clearly does not want this very loud grassroots voice to be heard at the party’s convention.

The pretense being used to block Washington County is the claim that the county had no right to adopt nomination and election procedures for the selection of its delegates. The RPA has claimed that any process more detailed than that which exists in the RPA’s rules is in conflict with the rules, and therefore invalid.

The RPA’s rules list no process whatsoever.

This claim is therefore facially ridiculous – no election can take place without the use of some nomination and election procedure. Every county did use some procedure, whether it was written out or not. This reasoning thereby renders every Republican Party election that has ever taken place in Arkansas invalid. While Washington County’s chairman did appeal the ruling, it is little wonder that the Republican Party’s leadership has still chosen to exclude them. The point was never enforcement of the rules – the point was disenfranchisement.

But all 26 disenfranchised counties should remember that the convention is indeed “the final authority in all party matters.” The convention will have the final say on Saturday, and will likely determine that more representation – not less – is in better keeping with Republican principles.

The Republican Establishment has spent years proving it fears the voice of its own members more than it fears Democrats. Blocking Pulaski, overturning 2024’s grassroots victories, stacking meetings, and now attempting to erase the voice of more than 1/3 of the state is not leadership – it is despotism.

Delegates who make it to the floor on June 6^th must understand the moment. The RPA is not acting as a neutral arbiter of the rule of law, but rather weaponizing the rule of law for political gain. This convention will be a referendum on whether the Republican Party of Arkansas can still be a vehicle for the will of voters, or whether it has become a closed dynasty, controlled by the permanent political class.

Delegates should remember that this Republican Convention is meant to represent the voices of all Arkansas counties – and remember that the Convention is “The final authority.”

PS. You may be wondering who leads the credentialing committee. That would be Sharon Stuthard, a member of the Washington County Republican Committee.

Likewise, the chair of the State Rules Committee is Brian Lester, also a member of the Washington County Republican Committee, and he served as Chairman of that committee until he was defeated.

Both Stuthard and Lester ran for positions at this contested county convention, and were soundly defeated: Stuthard lost her State Committeewoman position with 22 votes to 65. Lester lost his bid for state delegate with only 9 votes of the 50 possible, coming in last.

These two very unhappy people now want no one else to represent the Washington County Republican Committee.

Reported list of counties:
Boone
Carroll
Cleveland
Crawford
Dallas
Lawrence
Little River
Phillips
Poinsett
Prairie
Randolph
Sevier
Washington
Arkansas
Ashley
Bradley
Calhoun
Fulton
Grant
Jackson
Johnson
Lafayette
Mississippi
Newton
St. Francis
Woodruff