A new Talk Business & Politics-Hendrix College Poll released Thursday (Oct. 15) shows incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton with a nine-point lead over his Democratic challenger, Hallie Shoffner.
The poll, conducted Oct. 8-13, 2026, sampled attitudes from 709 likely voters and has a margin of error of +/-5%. Voters were asked:
Q: If the election for U.S. Senate was being held today, which of the following candidates would you vote for?
50% – Sen. Tom Cotton – R
41% – Hallie Shoffner – D
4.5% – Jeff Wadlin – L
4.5% – Undecided
The results show an increase of support of six points for Cotton and a decrease in support for Shoffner of six points when compared to a similar poll conducted in mid-August among 1,217 likely voters. In that Talk Business & Politics-Hendrix College Poll, Shoffner led Cotton 47.4%-44%. Libertarian Jeff Wadlin had 3% in that poll and 5.6% were undecided.
“Since our poll results were released in August, we have seen a barrage of millions of dollars of ads spent in opposition to Shoffner and in support of Cotton. Clearly, this has had some impact in the numbers,” said Roby Brock, Talk Business & Politics Editor-in-Chief. “Obviously, this race is not to the finish line and there are just under three weeks to go. It has been a competitive race and there is certainly time for more movement. We’ll see how the candidates’ campaigns respond and how that affects the final outcome.”
ANALYSIS
Talk Business & Politics seeks bipartisan input in the construction and analysis of its polls.
Robert Coon, managing partner with Impact Management Group, which works with Republican political candidates, helped craft and analyze the latest poll. He offered this analysis of the poll results:
Sen. Tom Cotton is in a solid position to win reelection on Nov. 3. He leads Democrat Hallie Shoffner by 9 percentage points, with only 5% of voters remaining as undecided. Both candidates are receiving nearly complete support from their party bases, with Shoffner currently leading with independent voters (+20%).
Shoffner is ahead with a handful of subgroups that traditionally favor Democratic candidates such as younger voters and those with a four-year college degree, however, Cotton has broader appeal across the electorate.
He leads among the oldest two age groups, which are the most reliable from a turnout perspective, and holds a significant 33 point advantage with voters 65 and older.
Cotton has a 13 point lead among men, which generally trend Republican, but he also has a 5 point lead with women, giving Shoffner no opportunity to find inroads.
While Shoffner is capitalizing on a tough political environment for Republicans to overperform what Democrats have received in statewide elections in recent cycles (31%-36%), her efforts will result in the same eventual outcome on Election Day.
Dr. Jay Barth, emeritus professor of politics at Hendrix College, is active in Democratic Party politics and also helped craft and analyze the latest poll. He offered this analysis of the poll results:
While Sen. Tom Cotton remains at 50% in his second reelection campaign for the U.S. Senate, he has shown significant movement across a period of the campaign when his campaign and outside groups supporting it have pumped millions of advertising dollars onto the airwaves of the state. Democrat Hallie Shoffner has retreated a bit and is now in the low 40s with the Arkansas electorate as we near early voting. Once again we see evidence that money does indeed continue to matter in American politics.
Although evaluations of Donald Trump’s performance in office remains a defining force in determining voting for the U.S. Senate, Cotton has clawed back some of those voters who “somewhat” disapprove of Trump. That group is now fairly even in their planned votes for U.S. Senate. While he remains behind with Independents, he has closed the gap slightly with that group and has gained additional support with GOP identifiers since our August survey. Cotton also continues to do well with the oldest subgroups of voters and is running surprisingly well among Black voters; in this survey, Cotton is gaining slightly more than one in four Black voters. Finally, Cotton has closed the gender gap in the race with gender surprisingly disappearing as a factor in the race. Of course, these are small sample sizes of demographic subgroups, but they are worth watching in the stretch run of the campaign.
Shoffner continues to overperform, for an Arkansas Democrat, with independents and is easily winning those with a college degree (55-37%), while the patterns are flipped with those lacking a college degree. She continues her dominance among the youngest subgroups of voters. It is essential that younger voters turn out in record numbers to enhance Shoffner’s chance of victory.
Finally, in this survey, we employed both texting and live callers in gaining the responses of voters. In a pattern that is being noted this election cycle by pollsters across the country, those who respond to live callers are skewing more Republican while those who are communicating with pollsters via text are skewing more Democratic. That was the case in this survey. Every election cycle creates new issues for pollsters to keep their eyes on and this appears to be one of the key issues in the 2026 cycle.
METHODOLOGY
The survey of 709 likely Arkansas voters was conducted Oct. 8-13, 2026, and has a margin of error of +/- 5%.
Responses were collected via SMS by phone and live callers. The poll is slightly weighted to account for key demographics including ethnicity, education, gender, and geography. Weighting will be released on Sunday.
All media outlets are welcome to reprint, reproduce, or rebroadcast information from this poll with proper attribution to Talk Business & Politics and Hendrix College. A link back to this specific story is also required for any digital or online usage by other media outlets.
For interviews, contact Talk Business & Politics Roby Brock by email at [email protected].
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Source: talkbusiness.net
