Earlier this year, Arkansas Republican Tom Cotton—now locked in a toss-up Senate race with Democrat Mark Pryor—voted against the farm bill. According to politicos and pundits in Washington, D.C., this is a politically dangerous vote to have cast. This recent article from Politico mentions his farm bill vote several times in that context. The Pryor campaign itself has taken to attacking Cotton for his vote. And Charlie Cook had this to say:
Although Cotton unquestionably has deeply held conservative principles that persuaded him to vote against the farm bill, it sure wasn’t politically expedient for the Senate candidate to vote in opposition. My hunch is that there is a lot of head-scratching over that vote among farmers and folks in rural and small-town Arkansas. … It’s times like this when voters have that “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” moment, wondering why a member of Congress from a largely rural state would take such a position. This race is far from over, and Cotton still could win. But my guess is, his vote on the farm bill will be a cudgel that Pryor will swing at him from now to November, providing an opening that the incumbent needed and the challenger could ill-afford to give. If Cotton doesn’t regret the vote already, he soon will.
