On Friday, June 26, the Arkansas Press Association hosted a debate for the people who want to run our state. Two of the three candidates for governor showed up in Eureka Springs and answered hard questions for over an hour — about schools, prisons, healthcare, and the cost of living.

The third candidate didn't come. Sarah Sanders "declined an invitation" to debate the two men trying to take her job. So there was an empty chair on the stage where our sitting governor was supposed to be.

If you want to know how you're doing as governor, a debate is a pretty good place to find out. You stand up, you defend your record, and you tell people why they should give you four more years. Sanders chose not to do any of that. She didn't have to face a single question. But skipping the room didn't make her record go away — it just meant she wasn't there to answer for it.

An empty chair, an "F" report card

Democrat Sen. Fred Love, who has served 16 years in the state legislature, opened by listing the places where Arkansas sits near the bottom of the entire country: infant mortality, food insecurity, maternal mortality, and deaths from preventable diseases. His point was simple. Add up that many failing grades, and the governor gets an "F."

He's not wrong about the numbers. Arkansas ranks dead last — #50 of 50 — for food insecurity. We rank #49 of 50 for overall health and #49 for infant mortality — our babies die at nearly the highest rate in the country. Sarah Sanders has run Arkansas since 2023. That's three years to move those numbers. They haven't moved.

The Libertarian candidate, Colt Shelby, made a different but related point: he said the governor has her eye on a bigger job in Washington, D.C., instead of focusing on Arkansas. He said former Gov. Asa Hutchinson left her a good situation and she "pissed it away." Whatever you think of his phrasing, the question underneath it is fair: is our governor actually working on Arkansas, or is she working on her next move?

LEARNS: $400 million out, public schools left behind

The biggest fight of the day was over the LEARNS Act and its school voucher program. Both challengers said the same thing the numbers already show: we can't afford it the way it works now.

Love said his very first act as governor would be an executive order ending the voucher program, and that the money would go back into public schools instead. He pointed out that 90% of Arkansas kids are in public schools, and that 95% of the LEARNS vouchers went to families whose kids were already in private school. In other words, we're spending public money to help families who didn't need the help, while the other 90% are left to fend for themselves.

This isn't new information. Sarah Sanders' voucher program has already spent $374 million of our taxpayer dollars on a program that hasn't improved a single public school in Arkansas. In every state where voters actually got to vote on vouchers, they've rejected them. We never got that vote — Sanders forced LEARNS on us. And some of that voucher money has gone to things like horseback riding, cooking classes, and a chicken coop.

Love called LEARNS Sanders' single biggest failure as governor, because it "will do the most damage to the most people." That's a debate Sanders could have shown up to win, if she had an answer. She didn't show up.

Healthcare: kids losing coverage while hospitals close

The moderator noted a recent report: the rate of uninsured children in Arkansas has doubled, from 4% to 8% — while hospitals around the state keep closing.

Even Shelby pinned the damage on President Trump's "Big Beautiful Bill," which shifted Medicaid costs onto the state and forced new work requirements. Love said 500,000 Arkansans have been pushed off the Medicaid rolls, including 100,000 kids, and called it unacceptable.

Here's the part Sanders didn't have to answer for: she publicly supported that same "Big Beautiful Bill" that slashed healthcare funding. She's pushing to reinstate Medicaid work requirements that threaten to knock thousands off coverage. And Arkansas is the only state in the country that still refuses to extend Medicaid coverage for new mothers from 60 days to a full year — in a state with one of the worst maternal mortality rates in the nation.

When the people running against you are both blaming your healthcare record, that's exactly the moment to stand up and defend it. The chair stayed empty.

The prison nobody asked for

Both challengers opposed the mega-prison Sanders has tried to build in Franklin County. Shelby said the way Sanders has run things is a "dictatorship" where legislators are expected to walk in lock-step with the governor instead of listening to their own constituents. He said it was the Franklin County prison fight that pulled him into politics in the first place.

That tracks with what's on the record. Sanders secretly planned the Franklin County prison without telling a single local official, utility, or resident — and emails later showed state officials mocking the residents. The community doesn't want it, the data says it's a bad site, and she still tried to ram it through. When Shelby was asked what he'd do on day one, he said he'd fire people who've done a bad job — and named former corrections czar Joe Profiri, the same official Sanders hired, saw fired, and then rehired as a six-figure "senior advisor."

Why skip it?

A governor with a strong record wants the debate. It's free airtime to brag. Sanders skipping this one tells you something: there isn't an easy answer for why Arkansas still ranks #49 out of 50 states overall after three years of her leadership, why we spent $374 million on vouchers for families who didn't need them, or why kids are losing health coverage while she cheers on the bill that's doing it.

It's the same instinct we've seen before. This is the governor who tried to gut the state's Freedom of Information Act so the public couldn't see how she spends our money, and who weakened it enough to hide the details of her own travel. Dodging questions isn't an accident with Sarah Sanders. It's a pattern.

Her two opponents stood up for an hour and made their case. She sent an empty chair. We deserve a governor who will actually show up and answer for what she's done to Arkansas.

Source

Gubernatorial challengers talk ideas as Sanders skips debate — Matt Campbell, June 27, 2026. Photo: Arkansas Times.