In 1990, Nelson won the Republican gubernatorial nomination in a divisive race against Tommy F. Robinson, who then held Arkansas's 2nd congressional district seat based about Little Rock. Nelson lost in the fall to Clinton. In 1994, he sought the governorship again and narrowly won the GOP primary over state SenatorSteve Luelf and businessman Bill Jones. In that campaign his events coordinator was the later State Senator Missy Irvin of Mountain View. Nelson was again defeated in the general election, 59 to 41 percent by Democratic Governor Jim Guy Tucker, who had succeeded Bill Clinton in December 1992, when Clinton resigned to become U.S. President. Nelson had openly predicted that Tucker would be indicted before the end of his elected term. Tucker was forced to resign in 1996 after his conviction in the Whitewater investigation.
Nelson has remained a prominent part of Arkansas' political scene, promoting a proposal to raise the natural gas severance tax to fund highway improvements and openly attacking the attempts of the Game and Fish Commission to exempt itself from the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act in regard to fiscal matters.
In 2015, Nelson was named by Governor Asa Hutchinson, with whom he once served as GOP co-chair, to the University of Arkansas board of trustees. Nelson is the fourth Arkansas Republican whom Bill Clinton defeated for governor; the others being Lynn Lowe, Frank D. White, and Woody Freeman.
Nelson and his wife, Mary Lynn McCastlain, an artist originally from Brinkley, reside in Little Rock. They have two daughters and thirteen grandchildren. He is currently a partner in the Little Rock law firm of Jack Nelson Jones & Bryant.
The Whitewater controversy, Whitewater scandal, Whitewatergate, or simply Whitewater, was an American political controversy during the 1990s. It began with an investigation into the real estate investments of Bill and Hillary Clinton and their associates, Jim and Susan McDougal, in the Whitewater Development Corporation. This failed business venture was incorporated in 1979 with the purpose of developing vacation properties on land along the White River near Flippin, Arkansas.
Frank Durward White was an American banker and politician who served as the 41st governor of Arkansas. He served a single two-year term from 1981 to 1983.
James Guy Tucker Jr. is an American former politician, businessman, and attorney who served as the 43rd governor of Arkansas from 1992 until his resignation in 1996 after his conviction for fraud during the Whitewater affair. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 15th lieutenant governor, state attorney general, and as a U.S. representative.
Dale Leon Bumpers was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 38th Governor of Arkansas (1971–1975) and in the United States Senate (1975–1999). He was a member of the Democratic Party. He was counsel at the Washington office of law firm Arent Fox LLP, where his clients included Riceland Foods and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
David Hampton Pryor was an American politician who served as a representative for Arkansas's 4th congressional district from 1966 until 1973 and as a senator from Arkansas from 1979 until 1997. A member of the Democratic Party, Pryor also served as the 39th Governor of Arkansas from 1975 to 1979 and was a member of the Arkansas House of Representatives from 1960 to 1966. He served as the acting chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party from 2008 to 2009, following Bill Gwatney's assassination.
Reagan's coattails refers to the influence of Ronald Reagan's popularity in elections other than his own, after the American political expression to "ride in on another's coattails". Chiefly, it refers to the "Reagan Revolution" accompanying his 1980 election to the U.S. presidency. This victory was accompanied by the change of twelve seats in the United States Senate from Democratic to Republican hands, producing a Republican majority in the Senate for the first time since 1954.
The 1992 presidential campaign of Bill Clinton, the then-governor of Arkansas, was announced on October 3, 1991, at the Old State House in Little Rock, Arkansas. After winning a majority of delegates in the Democratic primaries of 1992, the campaign announced that then-junior U.S. senator from Tennessee, Al Gore, would be Clinton's running mate. The Clinton–Gore ticket defeated Republican incumbent President George H. W. Bush and Vice President Dan Quayle in the presidential election on November 3, 1992, and took office as the 42nd president and 45th vice president, respectively, on January 20, 1993.
Young Timothy Hutchinson is an American Republican politician, lobbyist, and former United States senator from the state of Arkansas.
Tommy Franklin Robinson was an American businessman, lobbyist, and politician who served as the U.S. representative for Arkansas's 2nd congressional district from 1985 to 1991. He was a member of the Republican Party. Before he was elected to Congress, Robinson was the sheriff of Pulaski County.
William Asa Hutchinson II is an American attorney, businessman, and politician who served as the 46th governor of Arkansas from 2015 to 2023. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a U.S. attorney, U.S. representative, and in two roles in the George W. Bush administration. He was a candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Raymond Hoyt Thornton Jr. was an American attorney and politician. He was a Democratic U.S. Representative for Arkansas's 4th congressional district from 1973 to 1979 and the 2nd district from 1991 to 1997. He served as an associate justice on the Arkansas Supreme Court from 1997 to 2004.
The Democratic Party of Arkansas is the affiliate of the Democratic Party in the state of Arkansas. The current party chair is Grant Tennille. Former U.S. president Bill Clinton was born in Arkansas, and served as state governor from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992.
Bill Clinton served as the 42nd president of the United States (1993–2001) and as the 40th and 42nd governor of Arkansas. A member of the Democratic Party, Clinton first ran for a public office in 1974, competing in the congressional election for Arkansas's 3rd congressional district. After narrowly losing to incumbent representative John Paul Hammerschmidt, he ran for the office of Arkansas Attorney General in 1976. He won the Democratic primary comfortably, receiving over 55% of the popular vote. Witnessing his strong support during the primaries, Republicans did not nominate a candidate to run against him. Clinton won the general election unopposed. His experience as the attorney general was considered a natural "stepping-stone" to the governorship.
The 1994 Arkansas gubernatorial election took place on November 8, 1994, as a part of the United States gubernatorial elections, 1994.
Aylmer Lynn Lowe, known as A. Lynn Lowe, was an American businessman and politician from Garland near Texarkana in Miller County in southwestern Arkansas, who was a major figure in the Arkansas Republican Party. He was the Republican gubernatorial nominee in 1978 against the Democrat Bill Clinton, served as state party chairman from 1974 to 1980, and was the GOP candidate in Arkansas's 4th congressional district in 1966, having been defeated by the Democrat David Pryor, then a state representative and a future governor and U.S. Senator, originally from Camden in Ouachita County in south Arkansas.
The 1992 United States elections elected state governors, the President of the United States, and members of the 103rd United States Congress. The election took place after the Soviet Union crumbled and the Cold War ended, as well as the redistricting that resulted from the 1990 census. Often considered "The Year Of The Woman," these elections brought an increased number of female politicians to Washington such as Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Carol Moseley Braun (D-IL). Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas defeated incumbent President George H. W. Bush and businessman Ross Perot in the presidential election. The Democratic Party maintained their control of both chambers of Congress. This is the first Democratic trifecta since the Republican victory in the 1980 elections and the last one during the 20th century and the last one overall until 2008.
The 1996 United States Senate election in Arkansas was held on November 5, 1996. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator David Pryor decided to retire. Republican Tim Hutchinson won the open seat, becoming the first Republican to win a U.S. Senate seat in Arkansas since Reconstruction in 1872 and the first to ever be popularly elected in the state. He was the first to win this seat since 1870. Hutchinson lost re-election in 2002 to David Pryor's son Mark Pryor.
The 2014 Arkansas gubernatorial election was held on November 4, 2014, to elect the Governor of Arkansas, concurrently with the election to Arkansas's Class II U.S. Senate seat, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections. This was the last time the Arkansas Governor’s changed partisan control.
The 1990 Arkansas gubernatorial election took place on November 6, 1990. Incumbent Democratic Governor Bill Clinton won re-election in a two-way race against Democrat turned Republican Sheffield Nelson with 57.5% of the vote. This was Clinton's fourth consecutive, and fifth overall, term as Governor of Arkansas, as well as his final term.
James Ray Caldwell, known as Jim R. Caldwell, is a retired Church of Christ minister in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who was a Republican member of the Arkansas State Senate from 1969 to 1978, the first member of his party to sit in the legislative upper chamber in the 20th century. His first two years as a senator corresponded with the second two-year term of Winthrop Rockefeller, the first Republican governor of Arkansas since Reconstruction. Caldwell was closely allied with Rockefeller during the 1969-1970 legislative sessions.
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