State executive race · November 3, 2026
Governor
The governor is Arkansas's chief executive, who proposes the state budget, signs or vetoes legislation, and appoints the heads of state agencies.
4-year term. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) is seeking a second term. Arkansas elects its lieutenant governor separately, so there are no joint tickets. Three candidates are printed on the ballot.
The candidates
Listed alphabetically by last name.
Fredrick "Fred" Love
State Senator, District 15 (since 2023); Senate Minority WhipLove is a Little Rock Democrat who has served in the Arkansas Senate since 2023, after 12 years in the state House, and is the Senate minority whip. His campaign focuses on public schools and literacy, regional economic development, health care access and stopping the proposed Franklin County prison.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders
Governor of Arkansas (since 2023)Sanders has been governor since January 2023 and was previously White House press secretary for President Donald Trump from 2017 to 2019. She is seeking a second term. Her campaign centers on her first-term record on education, income tax cuts and public safety, and on further phasing down the state income tax.
Colt Shelby
Oil and gas contracts professional and farmerShelby is a sixth-generation Arkansan from Cecil who worked about 16 years on drilling rigs before managing contracts for a Houston-based oil company, and whose family owns a farm. He was nominated by the Libertarian Party of Arkansas and has not held elected office. His campaign focuses on government transparency, opposition to the Franklin County prison, data-center utility costs and rural schools.
Compare on the issues
Summaries of each candidate's stated positions. See each profile for sources and details.
| Issue | Fredrick "Fred" Love Democratic | Sarah Huckabee Sanders Republican | Colt Shelby Libertarian |
|---|---|---|---|
| Education | Supports literacy investment, school mental health services, fair teacher pay, and opposes policies that move funding away from public classrooms. | Signed the LEARNS Act, which raised minimum teacher pay to $50,000 and created Education Freedom Accounts for private and home school costs; proposed $122 million for the accounts in 2026. | Opposes voucher expansion that he says pulls funding from public schools; prioritizes teacher pay and rural district funding. |
| Public Safety | Would stop construction of the proposed 3,000-bed Franklin County prison and focus on rehabilitation, reentry programs and corrections staffing. | Signed sentencing changes requiring the most violent offenders to serve their full sentences and says the state has added 1,500 beds at existing prisons; her office lists investing in prison space as a priority. | Opposes the proposed 3,000-bed Franklin County prison, citing costs, rural impact and doubts that more beds improve public safety. |
| Economy & Jobs | Proposes regional economic development hubs, small-business grants and startup capital, and education partnerships with HBCUs and community colleges. | Proposed ending the state's remaining 0.125% sales tax on groceries, which she called its most regressive tax. | No public position found yet |
| Taxes | Says cuts to the top income tax rate mainly benefit the wealthiest and make public services harder to fund. | Signed a May 2026 law cutting the top individual income tax rate from 3.9% to 3.7% and the top corporate rate from 4.3% to 4.1%; supports phasing out the state income tax. | No public position found yet |
| Abortion | No public position found yet | Says she is proud that Arkansas is "overwhelmingly a pro-life state"; said in 2024 she had not seen an abortion-rights ballot measure she would support. | No public position found yet |
| Agriculture | No public position found yet | No public position found yet | Supports protecting farmland and water from industrial development and policies that keep family farms viable. |
| Elections & Democracy | No public position found yet | No public position found yet | Supports disclosing major state contracts and incentive deals before they are final and holding regular town halls in every region. |
| Energy & Environment | No public position found yet | No public position found yet | Would require large data centers and crypto-mining operations to pay for grid upgrades and protect water used by farms and communities. |
| Health Care | Supports protecting Medicaid, expanding maternal and mental health services and using telehealth in rural areas. | No public position found yet | No public position found yet |
| Housing | Proposes expanding affordable housing statewide. | No public position found yet | No public position found yet |
| Immigration | No public position found yet | Sent about 40 Arkansas National Guard members to support border operations in Texas in 2024, after an earlier deployment of about 80 Guard members to the southern border. | No public position found yet |
| Infrastructure | Supports investment in roads, water, sewer and broadband to make every community business-ready. | No public position found yet | No public position found yet |