WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Arkansas Republicans with competing visions on how best to implement President Donald Trump’s agenda to overhaul elections and voting will vie for their party’s nomination for the state’s top elections job on Tuesday.
U.S. Army veteran Bryan Norris and state Sen. Kim Hammer were the top two vote-getters in the March 3 GOP primary for Arkansas Secretary of State, but both candidates fell far short of the majority vote needed to avoid Tuesday’s primary runoff election.
The winner will face Democrat Kelly Grappe, who ran unopposed for her nomination.
The duties of the Arkansas Secretary of State include overseeing state business filings and maintaining the state capitol building and its grounds, but the office is probably best known for its administration of federal, state and district elections in Arkansas.
Both Norris and Hammer have touted their support of Trump’s election agenda, but the two disagree on some key points of election administration. For example, Norris supports hand-counting ballots in elections without the use of automated tabulation equipment. Hammer authored a 2023 law that requires hand-counted ballots to be compatible with state tabulation equipment and requires counties that hand-count ballots to bear any associated costs.
The call to fully hand-count ballots has been a popular refrain among many Trump supporters since the president’s failed attempts to overturn the 2020 election. But some attempts at full hand-counts since then have shown the process to be time-consuming, expensive and prone to human error.
Hammer has endorsements from much of the state’s Republican Party establishment, including U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Lt. Gov. Leslie Rutledge, Attorney General Tim Griffin and outgoing Secretary of State Cole Jester. Norris’ backers include former national security adviser Michael Flynn and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, both prominent 2020 election deniers and Trump allies.
In his endorsement of Hammer, Jester called on Norris to drop out of the race over the candidate’s past confrontational and expletive-laden social media posts. In an interview with KATV, Norris acknowledged using “some salty language from time to time” but added, “you’re never going to hear me talk or speak that way again.”
Norris edged Hammer in the competitive three-way primary with both candidates receiving about 34% of the vote. Miller County Judge Cathy Hardin Harrison received about 32% of the vote.
Just more than half the primary vote was cast in counties Trump carried with 70% or more of the vote in 2024. Norris performed slightly better than Harrison and Hammer in these areas, while Hammer slightly outperformed the others in the rest of the state.
Pulaski, Benton and Washington counties are the biggest population centers in the state, and they contributed the most votes in the March 3 primary. Pulaski is home to Little Rock and is where former Vice President Kamala Harris posted her best performance in the state in the 2024 presidential election. Although Pulaski is Arkansas’ most populous county, Benton tends to have more influence in Republican contests, as was the case on March 3.
Regardless of who wins, the eventual Republican nominee will have an advantage heading into the general election. It’s been 20 years since Arkansas elected a Democrat as secretary of state and no Democrat has won statewide office since 2010.
Some Arkansas voters in a handful of districts across the state will also choose nominees for state Senate and House. Republicans hold lopsided majorities in both chambers.
The Associated Press does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow a trailing candidate to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.
Arkansas does not have automatic recounts, but candidates may request and pay for one, with the costs refunded if the outcome changes. The AP may declare a winner in a race that is subject to a recount if it can determine the lead is too large for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.
Here are some of the key facts about the election and data points the AP Decision Team will monitor as the votes are tallied:
When do polls close?
Polls close at 7:30 p.m. local time, which is 8:30 p.m. ET.
What’s on the ballot?
The AP will provide vote results and declare winners in the Republican primary runoffs for secretary of state and state House Districts 5, 6, 46, 52, and 92, as well as the Democratic primary runoffs for state Senate District 15 and state House District 35.
Who gets to vote?
Voters do not need to have voted in the March 3 primary to participate in the March 31 runoff. But primary voters may only vote in the runoff of the same party as they did in the primary. In other words, Republican primary voters may not vote in a Democratic primary runoff or vice versa. Voters in the non-partisan primary may vote in either party’s runoff.
For voters who did not participate in a party primary, Arkansas Democrats allow any registered voter to vote in Democratic contests, while Republicans bar registered Democrats from voting in Republican contests.
What do turnout and advance vote look like?
There were about 1.8 million registered voters in Arkansas as of the March 3 primary.
More than 266,000 voters participated in the Republican primary for secretary of state. The state Senate District 15 Democratic primary had about 9,300 total votes, while five of the six state House Districts forced to a runoff each had total votes of between 4,400 and 5,200 total votes. The lone exception was the Democratic primary for state House District 35, which had about 1,700 total votes.
In the 2022 primaries for statewide offices, about 52% of Democratic voters and 42% of Republican voters cast their ballots for governor before Election Day.
More than 13,000 statewide Republican runoff ballots had already been cast as of Thursday.
How long does vote-counting usually take?
In the GOP U.S. Senate primary on March 3, the AP first reported results at 8:32 p.m. ET, or two minutes after polls closed. The last vote update of the night was at 2:04 a.m. ET with more than 99% of total votes counted.
When are early and absentee votes released?
County elections officials throughout the state have said they tend to release all or nearly all results from early and absentee voting in the first vote update of the night, before any in-person Election Day results are released.
Are we there yet?
As of Tuesday, there will be 217 days until the 2026 midterm elections.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the 2026 election at https://apnews.com/projects/elections-2026/.
Robert Yoon, The Associated Press
