Did you hear the drums Thursday night in Fayetteville? Hundreds of folks turned out for Hallie Shoffner, standing on the corner of the Farmers Market district or perhaps the Davidson Street vibe, waving signs and acting like a rally isn’t just supposed to happen on the news. She’s taking a shot at Tom Cotton in the U.S. Senate race, and there was a definite electricity in the air as early voting kicked off. It wasn’t a stiff, suit-and-tie affair. You know the type—suits in Bloomington, boring speeches in Little Rock. This felt more like a block party where someone’s giving a stump speech. Shoffner talked to them eye-to-eye about why she thinks she’s the one to flip that seat. She spent her time laying out what she calls “priorities” for NWA, namely the stuff that actually keeps people worried at the dinner table: healthcare costs, prescription drug prices, and that mess with hemp law. If you know Shoffner, you know she’s been fighting in this specific trench for a minute. She isn’t just some political newcomer parachuting in from New York. She’s been working the edges of policy around here, particularly that tangled web of hemp regulations that still treats farmers like criminals no matter how hard they try to comply. She tied that into her pitch: she claims to know how to navigate a system rigged against working Arkansans. “We’re living in a time where it feels like the U.S. Senate is broken,” she told the crowd, keeping the tone conversational, not sermonizing. “But we have a chance to change who sits in that chair in D.C.” The crowd was mixed—students and retirees both hanging on her every word. She criticized the incumbent, Tom Cotton, not with some fancy policy
Source: 5News KFSM
