In gubernatorial debate, Sanders relies on usual talking points as opponents attack her record

Anyone tuning into Tuesday’s gubernatorial debate hoping to learn something new about any of the three candidates likely came away disappointed, as all three continued to play the same rehearsed tunes they’ve been singing since the race began. Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders touted her successes over the last four years, while her opponents, Democratic State Sen. Fred Love and Libertarian Colt Shelby, accused her of ignoring issues that actually matter to Arkansans and of taking credit for things she had no role in.

The debate, which took place in Conway, was carried live on television and online by Arkansas TV and lasted just under an hour. The candidates were asked 10 questions, with each candidate having one minute to give an initial answer to each question, followed by 30 seconds for rebuttal from each participant. 

Medicaid

The first question posed to the debaters was what the state should do as far as funding Medicaid coverage now that the Trump administration has rejected a state request to renew Arkansas’s hybrid Medicaid expansion, ARHOME. As the Arkansas Advocate reported in July, “Health experts have credited Arkansas’ expansion for a drop in the state’s uninsured rate and for a reduction in hospitals’ costs for treating patients without insurance.” The federal administration’s refusal to allow Arkansas to continue the ARHOME plan could potentially leave tens of thousands of Arkansans without health coverage starting in 2027.

Shelby, speaking first, said finding an answer to this question is one of the main reasons he’s running for governor. He said Sanders had “done no planning” on the issue during her four years in office, and he specifically brought up the ongoing controversy over lengthy waitlists for state services for families of Arkansans with disabilities.

Love said he was there when the state passed Medicaid expansion initially, which he said they did because “hospitals were going out of business” due to uncompensated care. He added that he would work with the Trump administration as governor to try to cover the costs of keeping the existing program, but that keeping the program was important enough that the state should fund it if the feds continued to refuse. 

Sanders agreed with her opponents that this is “an important issue,” and said it would be one of the biggest issues of the next legislative session. She said access to healthcare is important, but so is affordability, which she said is why she imposed a work requirement on Medicaid recipients.

In rebuttal, Shelby correctly noted that the work requirement on Medicaid came from the federal One Big Beautiful Bill and was not something imposed under state law. Sanders ignored this and touted the $209 million the state has received from the Trump administration for his Rural Health Transformation Program “due to the work of my team.”

LEARNS fairness

The panel was next asked about LEARNS and the different treatment public and private schools receive under the comprehensive educational overhaul law Sanders’ signed in 2023. Specifically, they were asked (1) how Arkansas can ensure accountability from private schools if they aren’t subject to the same testing and standards as public schools and (2) how the law is fair to children who live in areas without any private schools nearby.

“I don’t think it’s fair,” Love said, repeating his earlier promise to end support for LEARNS vouchers via executive order on Day 1 of his administration. 

At the same time we’re taking public funds for private schools, Love said, we have 45,000 kids losing SNAP benefits. He said the state is taking money from those who need it most and giving money to the most affluent.

“What’s not fair is trapping kids in failing schools,” Sanders said. 

She accused those who oppose LEARNS of being OK with Arkansas being dead last in education, and she stressed that LEARNS is about more than just vouchers. She said LEARNS also allowed the state to hire 120 literacy coaches who have given over 45,000 hours of specialized instruction around the state. She added that LEARNS was the “largest investment in public education” in Arkansas history and bragged that it made Arkansas one of the top five states in teacher pay.

Shelby disagreed with Sanders’ characterization of the LEARNS Act, calling it “the biggest failure of this administration.” He said teachers are unhappy, and he said Sanders’ claim of academic improvements due to LEARNS are dubious given that the improvement is based on an ATLAS test that isn’t used or accepted by other states. He said Arkansas is continuing to fail its children, and he called for scaling back LEARNS to the point that it was affordable and would not negatively impact the state’s education system as a whole.

Rural healthcare

What can be done to fix rural healthcare issues such as hospital closures, lengthy drive times to medical centers and a lack of maternity wards around the state?

Sanders said maternal health was one of the big issues her administration has taken on. She pointed out that she was the only mother on the debate stage and said it was a very important issue to her for that reason. That’s why, she said, she created the “Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies” initiative. That campaign, Sanders said, has increased awareness among pregnant Arkansans regarding resources available to them.

Shelby accused Sanders of being “pro-birth, not pro-life,” pointing to Arkansas’ high infant-mortality rate. He said the state needs to ensure that pregnant women, new mothers and babies are getting all the care they need, whether that comes from Medicaid or from employer-provided private insurance. He praised models used in Montana and in Pulaski County that are more proactive in connecting mothers with services and continuing to follow up with mothers after delivery for a period of time.

Love repeated his earlier answer that the state needs to invest in Medicaid, and he bemoaned that more than half a million Arkansans have been kicked off the program since Sanders took over.

Both Love and Shelby blasted Sanders for her opposition to expanding postpartum Medicaid coverage to 12 months as every other state in the country has already done.

“One of the real issues is that Democrats think government is the answer to all our problems,” Sanders said, arguing that she was providing mothers with opportunities to get back on their feet and get off Medicaid. 

Budgeting

The candidates were next asked a hypothetical about future state budgets: While the state ended the previous fiscal year with more than $600 million in surplus, should Arkansas account for the possibility of the federal government sending less money to states in future years when coming up with the next state budget?

Love said he didn’t consider that $600 million a surplus, but rather an “underinvestment” in Arkansas. He pointed to the CES waitlist, lack of childcare resources and Arkansas’ No. 1 ranking in food insecurity as examples of where the state could and should invest more money, but said a future lack of federal money must also be considered when deciding where and how to spend state funds.

Sanders did not respond to the question about a possible lack of federal funds and used her answer to tout the tax cuts her administration has passed, saying they’d returned a billion and a half dollars to Arkansans. She also took credit for $300 million in savings based on ending waste and abuse in some state programs.

Shelby accused Sanders of misleading people when she talked about cutting the size of government, noting that state government has grown by 7% under Sanders’ watch despite still being short-staffed in corrections and the Department of Human Services. Love added that, if we’d invested in things that improved Arkansans’ lives, as Sanders claimed, Arkansas wouldn’t be near the bottom in food security, maternal health and infant mortality.

Farm woes

Arkansas farmers are struggling, with Riceland recently closing nine rice dryers due to the lowest rice yield in 50 years. How can Arkansas secure sustainable markets for state agricultural programs?

There’s no question that farmers are struggling, Sanders said, and we have to support them. She said that she recently signed an executive order allowing farmers more flexibility to use red-dyed diesel that had been previously limited to on-farm activities. She said a need to help farmers is also why her administration has sought out new foreign markets for Arkansas products and why she’d directed money to the University of Arkansas’ agricultural programs to research new varieties of rice and other crops.

Shelby said the red-dyed diesel order was a Trump directive, not something Sanders had come up with herself. He said we need a secretary of agriculture who cares about Arkansas, not one who is off on vacation all the time.

Sanders pushed back on this, saying that Ag. Sec. Wes Ward is a member of the United States Marine Corps, fighting for our freedoms, and isn’t just off on vacations as Shelby claimed. She also accused Democrats and Libertarians of blocking a federal farm bill.

Love said there was tax relief we could provide to farmers today, which he said would do more for them than investments in future advancements that would take years to arrive. He also said we needed to encourage Arkansas’ federal delegation to support and pass a farm bill.

Jails and prisons

The candidates were asked what should be done about the thousands of inmates currently in county jails after being convicted of felonies who cannot be transferred to state prisons due to a lack of prison beds. Are we going to build a new prison? If so, where? Or are we just going to expand existing facilities?

The failed Franklin County prison was “one of the biggest defeats of any governor in the history of Arkansas,” Shelby said. He accused Sanders of retaliating against lawmakers who didn’t support her prison plan. Shelby also said the solution was straightforward: Listen to lawmakers in the judiciary committee, who have been working on this issue for years and have proposed solutions that would work.

Love said he didn’t plan on building a new prison. Instead, he said, Arkansans need more opportunities earlier in life so they are on a path that avoids crime and prison. He said there’s a direct correlation between literacy rates and incarceration rates, and he said we need to look at childcare and other early childhood avenues to increase literacy rates.

Sanders avoided acknowledging her so-far failed attempt to build a prison on a craggy, bone-dry swath of Franklin County. She said public safety is a top priority, and she acknowledged that Arkansas has not done everything it can to fix this problem. She said locking people up forever cannot be the solution, and she said that’s why she invested in more mental health treatment and anti-recidivism measures.

After Shelby and Love pushed back on Sanders’ answers, accusing her of stacking the corrections board with loyal lobbyists and trying to jail her way to a safer society, Sanders said Democrats and Libertarians want open borders and empty prisons and will “release a wave of crime that ravages our cities.”  

Death penalty

In light of Tennessee’s recent failed attempt to execute a woman on death row, the candidates were asked how they felt about the death penalty and whether Arkansas needs to make any changes to its capital punishment laws.

Sanders said she believes in justice for victims. She said Arkansas couldn’t get the necessary lethal-injection drugs for years, which is why she signed a law allowing for other forms of execution. (That additional method, nitrogen hypoxia, is controversial and currently being challenged in court.)

While it was “an awful thing that happened in Tennessee,” Shelby said he is “all for the death penalty.” He added that he supports the death penalty for people who rape children, which was the subject of a facially unconstitutional law the Legislature recently passed, and mentioned that he supports use of firing squads for carrying out executions.

Love said he used to be more anti-death penalty than he is now, but that he would take each death decision on a case-by-case basis. Sanders agreed with the need to judge each case individually, but Shelby objected, saying each case had already been judged in court and it was the duty of the governor to carry out the imposed sentence.

Data centers

After being reminded that Trump had recently characterized places that reject data centers as “backward and poor,” the candidates were asked what their stance was on data centers generally.

Shelby said the problem isn’t with data centers, but with where we are putting them. He said public input is vital, and he attacked Sanders for signing a bill that left data center decisions to county judges rather than the people.

Love acknowledged that he and other legislators erred when they passed a law making it easier for companies to build data centers in Arkansas. He said he subsequently tried to put a framework around data centers that would protect our lands, and he said companies need to answer questions before they are allowed to build new projects.

Sanders said she “led the fight” to make sure states could protect themselves by getting federal lawmakers to strike a provision in the Big Beautiful Bill that would have prevented states from imposing any restrictions on data centers. She said we have to look at each project individually, then touted her administration bringing in 75,000 jobs and billions in investments. 

Fuel prices

The candidates were asked what could be done about high fuel prices, and, if we suspended the state’s fuel tax, how would we fund road maintenance?

Love said it was the failed policies of Donald Trump that got us into this problem and brought higher fuel prices. He said he would consider suspending the state’s fuel tax, and he commended the governor on the executive order that allowed farmers to use red-dyed diesel more liberally.

Sanders said one reason she continues to fight to phase out Arkansas’ income tax is affordability. She repeated that her administration has signed four tax cuts and took credit for removing the grocery tax. She said Arkansas under her leadership has the lowest cost of living in the U.S. (That claim seems to come from a single U.S. News study; the same study also ranked Arkansas 45th overall in quality of life.)

Shelby said cutting the fuel tax isn’t going to help farmers, and the removal of the grocery tax amounts to about 25 cents in savings on the average grocery bill. He also pointed out the increased cost of utilities under Sanders, which has outpaced any savings from tax cuts. He said we need to work on real affordability and stop helping corporations while hurting Arkansans.

Education

For the final question, the candidates were asked what further changes the state needs to make to the educational system.

Shelby said the main thing was replacing Jacob Oliva as secretary of education. He said we don’t need someone from Florida to tell us how to run Arkansas schools, and added that we should also stop using the state’s preferred ATLAS test to measure schools and instead use a test that all states recognize as a valid measure of school quality.

Love said we have to invest more in childcare, which will get our families working and will help childhood literacy rates at the same time. He said we also need to offer free lunches to all students in public schools and ensure that our kids receive adequate mental health care so they don’t have to “suffer silently.”

Sanders used her answer to tout her accomplishments. She said we had to “transform the system,” which she said couldn’t be done by “tinkering at the edges.” She boasted about the LEARNS Act – “the largest investment in public education” – and focused on keeping the best teachers through raises and bonus pay.

After Shelby and Love dispute the governor’s claims of success, she tried to paint that as a partisan divide.

“The difference between Democrats and Libertarians and me,” Sanders said, “is I want to invest in students, not systems.”