Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) won a third term in the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, defeating Democrat Hallie Shoffner in a race that drew national attention over immigration policy.
The Associated Press called the race for Cotton at 9:40 p.m. Tuesday. With an estimated 82 percent of votes counted, Cotton led with 54.3 percent of the vote, or 383,679 votes, to Shoffner’s 42.6 percent, or 301,362 votes. Libertarian candidate Jeff Wadlin received 3.1 percent, or 22,013 votes.
Cotton campaigned with the backing of President Donald Trump, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, and Arkansas’ entire congressional delegation. He ran in a state Trump carried by more than 30 points in 2024.
Shoffner, a rice and soybean farmer whose operation closed in 2025, had a record of donations to national Democratic figures including Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Elizabeth Warren. Before running for office, she served as executive director of Seis Puentes, a Little Rock nonprofit that assists undocumented Hispanic residents and worked with North Little Rock to help illegal immigrants obtain photo identification for accessing public services.
Immigration Dominated the Race
Shoffner’s positions on immigration enforcement became a central issue in the campaign. In June, she said she would vote to “defund ICE as it exists right now” and would “not spend one more dime on ICE,” while calling immigrants “whether they have documents or not” essential to the country’s “social, cultural, and economic fabric.” She also said the government should “enforce good laws,” “treat human beings like human beings,” and avoid being cruel in its treatment of immigrants. She later walked back the defunding language, writing, “I don’t want to defund ICE. I want to reform it.”
In a September 9 appearance on the Free Arkansas podcast, Shoffner said of undocumented workers, “They’re some of the best people we know, and honestly, we’d trade five Americans for just one of them because of how hard they work.” She questioned why such workers lacked a legal pathway to employment and suggested ICE agents’ use of bulletproof vests appeared “performative.” Her campaign manager, Anna-Lee Pittman, said Shoffner was relaying another farmer’s concerns about labor shortages and accused Cotton’s campaign of distorting her comments.
In October, a former senior employee of Shoffner’s family business, SFR Seed, told the Washington Free Beacon that Shoffner knowingly employed three illegal immigrants and alleged they received W-2 tax forms listing their children’s names. Shoffner had previously said she hired immigrant labor only through the federal H-2A program. Her campaign demanded “credible evidence” to support the claims, while Cotton’s campaign accused her of knowingly employing illegal workers and relying on falsified tax documents.
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