Arkansas Dem Running for Senate on 'Fairness' Platform Backed Race-Based Hiring and Admissions Policies
The Democratic nominee for Senate in Arkansas challenging two-term incumbent Tom Cotton says her "campaign is about fairness" for "everyone who works hard." At the same time, the candidate, Hallie Shoffner, says the government should make race-based hiring and admissions decisions.
Months before launching her campaign in July of last year, Shoffner testified before a state panel in February 2025 to argue that the state of Arkansas should keep race-based hiring and admissions policies.
Shoffner appeared before Arkansas's House State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee to testify on Senate Bill 3, which called to "prohibit discrimination or preferential treatment" based on race by state agencies, public school districts, colleges, and universities. She opposed the bill, arguing that it would hurt "groups like people of color" who are "forced to begin 15 feet behind the starting line."
"Under the guise of equality, SB3 will make it harder for these groups to succeed in careers as teachers and as public servants," Shoffner said. "Laws like this push us backward and not forward. And as a young woman farmer, I do not support efforts that strip my neighbors of opportunities."
Shoffner announced that she would challenge Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) three months later—and she's presenting herself in a different light as she runs to represent a state that backed President Donald Trump by 31 points in 2024.
On her campaign website, Shoffner says her "campaign is about fairness, dignity, and opportunity for everyone who works hard in Arkansas." She calls to "help farmers … diversify," not in their racial makeup but in the crops they grow. And she makes no mention of the diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives she spent years championing before running for office.
In a September 2024 interview with Talk Business & Politics, for example, Shoffner said she was "committed to the importance of DEI" because "representation of race, gender, and culture in agriculture is important." Government agencies and private employers have a "responsibility," she added, to "be intentional about DEI programs and supplier diversity."
Shoffner has cast herself both as a beneficiary of DEI and as a white woman who has benefited from a rigged system. "Women are DEI. Small farmers are DEI. Young farmers are DEI. Beginning farmers are DEI. I'm DEI," she posted to the liberal social media site Bluesky in February 2025. At the same time, she has said that, because she is white, she has a "responsibility" to make the agriculture industry "more equitable" for others.
"As a white farmer … I realize that I have inherited a large amount of land that systematically disenfranchised Black farmers," Shoffner told the left-wing outlet Tennessee Lookout in August 2024. "And it is my responsibility to acknowledge that, and leverage what I've been given to help others." She has attempted to do so through her nonprofit, Delta Harvest, which worked with "Black farmers" to "grow specialty rice," according to the Lookout.
Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R.) signed Senate Bill 3 into law on Feb. 18, 2025, about two weeks after Shoffner's testimony. The law repealed language encouraging companies that bid for state contracts to implement race-based hiring programs. It also ended race-based recruitment programs in Arkansas's public universities.
Shoffner, whose campaign did not respond to a request for comment, secured her party's nomination in the race against Cotton on Tuesday, when she defeated primary challenger Ethan Dunbar by nearly 57 points.
On the campaign trail, she is portraying herself as a lifelong farmer running to "fight" for those in Arkansas' agricultural industry.
In a November campaign video, for example, Shoffner said she has "been a rice and soybean farmer" her "whole life." Her campaign site originally stated that she is "not a politician, she's not much for political parties, and she's never run for office in her life—the only thing Hallie ever wanted to do was farm."
Shoffner grew up on her family's farm in eastern Arkansas but did not always work as a farmer, instead spending years as a left-wing activist.
As a master's student at the University of Arkansas's Clinton School of Public Service, the Washington Free Beacon reported, Shoffner developed fundraising strategies for PROMSEX, a Soros-funded social justice nonprofit in Peru. She went on to serve as executive director of Seis Puentes, an Arkansas nonprofit that helps illegal immigrants "engage" in the U.S. government "process," as Shoffner put it in a 2012 interview.
Shoffner served as deputy campaign manager of a Democratic state legislator's campaign for mayor of North Little Rock before joining an advertising and public relations agency in 2013. Three years later, she returned to her family's farm as her parents struggled to run it—and began working with a local marketing firm to build a "new" personal "brand" as "FarmHerHallie," testimonials released by the firm show. That "brand" centered on climate activism.
For years, Shoffner published blogs on "climate anxiety" and "climate action" to the since-deleted website FarmHerHallie.com. In 2020, she revealed in an op-ed for Arkansas Business that she joined a California-based climate organization, Citizens' Climate Lobby, because of its support for a carbon tax. One year later, in 2021, Shoffner served as a director of the Arkansas Citizens Climate League.
The "Issues" page on Shoffner's campaign site does not mention the word "climate." The "Meet Hallie" section was amended to say Shoffner "wanted to farm" rather than saying the "only thing Hallie ever wanted to do was farm."
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