The 2008 United States Senate election in Arkansas was held on November 4, 2008. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator

Mark Pryor Mark Lunsford Pryor (born January 10, 1963) is an American attorney, politician and lobbyist who served as a United States Senator from Arkansas from 2003 to 2015. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Prior to becoming senator, he was Attorne ...

ran for a second term. No Republican filed to challenge him, and his only opponent was

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation ...

candidate Rebekah Kennedy. Pryor won re-election with almost 80% of the vote, despite Republican

John McCain John Sidney McCain III (August 29, 1936 – August 25, 2018) was an American politician and United States Navy officer who served as a United States senator from Arizona from 1987 until his death in 2018. He previously served two terms ...

winning the state by nearly 20 points in the concurrent presidential election. Kennedy received the highest ever vote share of any Green Party candidate running for U.S. Senate, and the highest for a third party Senate candidate in Arkansas until her record was surpassed by Libertarian candidate Ricky Dale Harrington Jr. in

2020 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of events, COVID- ...

. , this was the last time the Democrats won a U.S. Senate election in Arkansas.

Candidates

Democratic

, incumbent U.S. Senator

Green

* Rebekah Kennedy, attorney and nominee for Attorney General in 2006 and 2010

General election

Campaign

On March 10, the state Republican Party announced it has no plans to field a candidate against Pryor. The only Republican to express interest in the race, health care executive Tom Formicola, decided not to run the weekend before filing began. Formicola lost the GOP primaries for the Senate in 2004 and the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...

in 2006. As a result, Pryor was the only Senator in 2008 to face no major-party opposition in a reelection bid. There had been speculation that former

Governor A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political ...

Mike Huckabee Michael Dale Huckabee (born August 24, 1955) is an American politician, Baptist minister, and political commentator who served as the 44th governor of Arkansas from 1996 to 2007. He was a candidate for the Republican Party presidential nomina ...

would run against Pryor if his presidential bid were unsuccessful, but on March 8, Huckabee said he would not contest the race. Pryor's sole challenger was Green Party nominee Rebekah Kennedy, who entered the race in April 2007. Kennedy received 206,504 votes (20.54%). This is the highest percentage of the vote for any Green Party candidate running for U.S. Senate ever, and her 206,504 votes is the second most total votes received by a Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate after

Medea Susan Benjamin Medea Benjamin (born Susan Benjamin; September 10, 1952) is an American political activist who was the co-founder of Code Pink with Jodie Evans and others.

's 326,828 votes in the 2000 California Senate race. Kennedy's campaign, in addition to being record breaking for the Green Party, was also the strongest showing of any independent or third party candidate running for the U.S. Senate in 2008.

Predictions

Polling

Pryor was polled at 90% in a poll without a challenger in March.

Results

References

External links

Elections
from the ''Arkansas Secretary of State''
U.S. Congress candidates for Arkansas
at

Project Vote Smart Vote Smart, formerly called Project Vote Smart, is a non-profit, non-partisan research organization that collects and distributes information on candidates for public office in the United States. It covers candidates and elected officials in si ...

Arkansas, U.S. Senate
from

CQ Politics Congressional Quarterly, Inc., or CQ, is part of a privately owned publishing company called CQ Roll Call that produces a number of publications reporting primarily on the United States Congress. CQ was acquired by the Economist Group and combined ...

Arkansas U.S. Senate
from ''OurCampaigns.com''
Arkansas U.S. Senate race
from ''2008 Race Tracker''
Campaign contributions
from

OpenSecrets OpenSecrets is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that tracks data on campaign finance and lobbying. It was created from a merger of the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) and the National Institute on Money in Politics (NIMP). ...

* ''official campaign websites (Archived)'' *
Rebekah Kennedy
Green Party candidate *
Mark Pryor
Democratic incumbent {{2008 United States elections

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...