Republican senators are trailing challengers in two new polls from Arkansas and Idaho, two of President Donald Trump’s strongest states in the 2024 presidential election. In Arkansas, a Talk Business & Politics-Hendrix College poll found Democratic Senate candidate Hallie Shoffner leading Republican Senator Tom Cotton by 47.4 percent to 44 percent. Libertarian Jeff Wadlin received 3 percent, while 5.6 percent were undecided.
Shoffner’s 3.4-point advantage falls within the poll’s 4.7-point margin of error, however. The survey of 1,217 likely voters was conducted by text message from August 11 to 12. The result is particularly striking because Trump carried Arkansas by 30.6 percentage points in the 2024 presidential election, winning 64.2 percent of the vote to then-Vice President Kamala Harris’ 33.6 percent.
It was the largest Republican presidential margin in Arkansas since Richard Nixon’s landslide victory in 1972. A second poll produced an equally surprising result in Idaho. Independent Senate candidate Todd Achilles led three-term Republican Senator Jim Risch by 38 percent to 33 percent in a head-to-head matchup, according to figures released Wednesday by the Bullfinch Group.
A substantial 29 percent were unsure. Idaho was one of Trump’s strongest states in 2024. He won 66.9 percent there compared to Harris’ by 30.4 points.
Only Wyoming, West Virginia and North Dakota gave Trump a higher share of their votes, with North Dakota narrowly exceeding Idaho at 67 percent. Trump’s 10 highest state vote shares in 2024, according to figures, were: This is a developing story and will be updated shortly.
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