Shoffner’s experience as a farmer, small-business owner and mother shapes a campaign that puts rural livelihoods, hunger and healthcare at the center of her move into public life.
Hallie Shoffner grew up in the Arkansas Delta, left to earn a bachelor’s degree at Vanderbilt, then came home to become a farmer. She followed her parents into a business that had been in the family for 150 years.
In 2025, she was forced to close the farm.
Now Shoffner, 38, is the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, mounting a long-shot bid to unseat two-term Republican Tom Cotton. Her experience in agriculture is central to a campaign focused on rural economic distress and on her argument that federal policy is failing families like hers.
“Corporate lobbyists have a stranglehold on agricultural policy,” Shoffner says. “The system is designed to consolidate wealth and power in the hands of the few.”
Her move into politics brings together several parts of her life: farming, small-business ownership, motherhood and faith. It also puts her in the middle of a political tension in Arkansas, where voters have supported measures such as raising the minimum wage while continuing to elect Republicans. Shoffner is trying to reach those voters. But her efforts to distance herself from the national Democratic Party have also drawn criticism from people within it.
The Farm and the Policy
The Arkansas Delta is a place where the soil is as rich as the people are poor. In one Delta county, the poverty rate exceeds 40 percent.
In Arkansas, rice is a major part of the agricultural economy: The state accounts for more than 45 percent of total U.S. rice production, contributing more than $1 billion annually to its economy. Its rice farms are predominantly family-owned and operated.
Shoffner’s work in Arkansas included advocating for water conservation. “I was vocal about water conservation, particularly in rice,” she says. In 2024, she received Farm Journal’s Top Producer Next Gen Award.
Now during the second Trump administration, tariffs, low prices and rising fuel costs have had a devastating impact on Arkansas’ rice farms. Last year, Arkansas led the country in Chapter 12 farm bankruptcy filings.
Shoffner’s own farm closure forms part of the story she tells voters about those economic pressures. She talks about investing in rural communities and “economic dignity for folks who feel left behind.”
That message is part of the state’s DNA. It draws on a history of organizing around economic inequality in Arkansas.
In the 1930s, the state was the birthplace of the integrated Southern Tenant Farmers Union.
In 2014 and 2018, voters approved minimum-wage increases by large margins while also electing Republicans, including Cotton in 2014.
The Politics of Hunger and Health
Beyond agriculture, Shoffner’s campaign focuses on hunger, poverty and access to healthcare across Arkansas.
“Arkansas is now the hungriest state in the country. One in four of our kids don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Arkansas is the second sickest state in the country. And Arkansas is the fourth poorest state in the country,” she says. “What I’m asking is, can’t we do a lot better than that?”
A lifelong United Methodist, Shoffner also brings her religious identity into her public life. For Shoffner, churches’ work helping families obtain food is part of the discussion about rural poverty. She points to their role while acknowledging that they cannot solve its underlying causes.
Shoffner also distinguishes evangelical Christianity from Christian nationalism. “I hate when evangelicalism is equated with Christian nationalism. These are good, godly people, who just want to worship and do really good things through their church.”
Food assistance is one of the policy issues separating Shoffner’s message from Cotton’s record. As a member of the House, Cotton voted twice against the federal farm bill, saying it included too much money for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Last year, he backed the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which also cut funding for SNAP and Medicaid.
Arkansas also has one of the country’s highest infant mortality rates. In 2023, its infant mortality rate was 14.9 deaths per 1,000 live births for infants born to Black women—more than twice the rate of 6.9 for infants born to white women.
Stepping Forward and Keeping Her Distance
Running as a Democrat in Arkansas means confronting more than disagreements over individual policies.
Shoffner describes trying to reach people who may agree with her economic message but resist voting for someone with a D at the end of their name.
She keeps “the national party” at arm’s length, she says. That approach drew criticism in April, when former Vice President Kamala Harris came to Little Rock to speak at the state party’s Fisher Shackelford Dinner.
Lottie Shackelford has long been a prominent Black woman in Arkansas politics. Little Rock’s first woman mayor and its second Black mayor, she later became the longest-serving vice chair of the Democratic National Committee.
Shoffner told Fox News that she had “absolutely nothing to do with” Harris’ visit and would not attend.
Her comments were taken as a snub and drew criticism from Black women activists who have long been a pillar of the Arkansas Democratic Party.
Shoffner acknowledged the criticism, saying she has been “accused of being a DINO” and “of having MAGA vibes.”
The disagreement exposes a tension within her campaign: Distancing herself from national Democratic figures may help her make her case to some voters, while creating friction with others whose support she is also seeking.
A Place Called Hope
At the crowded, sweltering Hope Watermelon Festival in August, Shoffner stopped at booths to ask owners about what they were selling and answer their questions. She also ate her share of watermelon.
Hope is on the other side of Arkansas from the Delta. It is Bill Clinton’s hometown, which he invoked at the 1992 Democratic convention when he said, “I still believe in a place called Hope.” But that history does not describe the county’s recent voting patterns: In the last presidential election, Trump carried the county with almost 70 percent of the vote.
Shoffner faces a long-shot race in that political environment. Her campaign brings the experience of running—and closing—a family farm into a debate over what government should do for rural communities. It also raises a question she is still navigating: how to reach beyond her party without alienating the people within it.
