Republican Arkansas state Representative Austin McCollum was arrested Saturday on domestic battery charges, prompting Gov Sarah Huckabee Sanders to call for him to resign and for state House leadership to strip McCollum of his leadership positions, the Arkansas Advocate reports.
Actual details of the accusation were not made public yet, but it was bad enough for McCollum to be held without bond with 100 days to go before the jailed pro-“election integrity” conservative faces voters in his campaign for “County Judge,” as in executive of Benton, the state’s second-most populous and home to Walmart’s corporate headquarters. Like in Texas, the title of “county judge” in Arkansas is meaningless in the judicial context. It really should just be “county executive” like it is in most other states as to not confuse the “judge” with actual jurists overseeing statute courts.
More importantly however it’s all but certainly too late for the county GOP to replace McCollum as their nominee as every key deadline has already passed and he can either withdraw within the next week or two or remain on the ballot against indie opponent Taylor Sizemore. Getting McCollum to withdraw and then pushing a write-in campaign is the only real option they have here.