Arkansas Primary: Boozman, Other Republicans Look Strong; Sen. Lincoln Faces Dem Challenge

It makes sense – Lincoln is the incumbent and she is being challenged by the sitting lieutenant governor of her state. With the national "netroots" and progressive movement supporting her opponent, she has stepped up her legislative game with an aggressive derivatives policy to rein in some Wall Street trading practices. What's more, the race is getting nasty, with a recent TV ad attacking Halter being labeled "racist" by some. Clearly, this is the race to watch in Arkansas.

But the next U.S. senator from Arkansas may very well be a Republican. In a recent Rasmussen poll of the race, all five Republicans named in the survey beat either Lincoln or Halter.

The most lopsided of the potential match-ups pitted Rep. John Boozman (R-Ark.) against Lincoln. In that hypothetical, Boozman wins 57 percent to 29 percent. But any Republican nominated would beat either Democrat, based on Rasmussen's early findings. Worth noting is that none of the possible matchups show either Lincoln or Halter garnering even 40 percent of the vote in November.

The environment is hostile. To put in perspective how challenging the times are for Arkansas Democrats, Rasmussen says just 35 percent of Arkansas voters approve of President Obama's performance.

"There's a general feeling that the administration and their allies are not listening to folks on the ground here who are not supportive of Obamacare," says Patrick Creamer, communications director for John Boozman's campaign.

So things are looking good for Republicans, but GOP candidate Gilbert Baker cautions against reading too much into the eary polling: "We all know that once there's a Republican nominee elected -- that everybody from labor to whoever, is going to come in here and try to prop up the Democrat," he told Politics Daily. "I think we have to be careful about being overly optimistic."

Eight Republicans in are vying for the chance to take on either Lincoln or Halter, but Rep. Boozman (whose campaign is managed by Mike Huckabee's daughter, Sarah) is the frontrunner. A rancher and ophthalmologist, Boozman has the added incentive of hoping to avenge his late brother's 1998 loss to Lincoln. (Fay Boozman, the former director of the Arkansas state Health Department, tragically died in a 2005 farming accident.)

After initially resisting party entreaties that he run, Boozman entered the race late, apparently inspired by Scott Brown's surprise victory in Massachusetts. His main rivals appears to be Arkansas State Sen. Baker, a former music professor who chairs the Arkansas Senate Budget Committee, and Jim Holt, who has statewide name recognition after losing contests with both Lincoln and Halter. (Kim Hendren and Curtis Coleman are the other Republicans currently polling ahead of the Democrats).

Baker is seeking to knock the frontrunner down a peg by portraying Boozman as a Washington insider who voted for Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). Baker recently visited 14 towns on his "No Bailouts Bus Tour," where he told Politics Daily in a phone interview: "We're not from Washington, we don't think the federal bailout approach was correct, and we think the deficits are debilitating..."

Rep. Boozman defends that vote as being necessitated by "this very dire economic crisis" – and stresses other votes where he opposed the Obama administration. "He voted against the health care bill, the cash for clunkers, the president's stimulus," says Boozman spokesman Creamer. Polls show Boozman hovering in the neighborhood of 48 percent and 46 percent, so it's not beyond the realm of possibility that he could win outright in the May 18 primary. If no candidate garners 50 percent, the two top vote-getters face each other in a runoff election.

That could make things interesting. Boozman would start the runoff campaign with the most support, because he's already the most widely known candidate, but the question then shifts. In the electorate's surly mood, would a 46 percent Boozman primary vote, for example, mean that there's a 54 percent anti-Boozman vote out there?

Another joker in the deck: The Democratic primary also falls on Tuesday – and those candidates may also wind up in a runoff. Arkansas has no party registration, but if someone votes a Democratic ballot on May 18, that voter would in turn be prohibited from voting in the GOP runoff -- and vice versa.