Kamala Harris is testing the 2028 political waters, but the former vice president won’t be receiving a warm welcome everywhere from fellow Democrats.
Hallie Shoffner, the Arkansas Democratic Senate nominee running a long-shot bid to unseat Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), will give the cold-shoulder when Harris comes to Little Rock later this month for the state Democratic Party’s annual Fisher Shackelford Dinner to honor women leaders. Harris will give the keynote address — one of her first major speaking engagements since losing the 2024 election.
“I don’t really think it matters. Like, I just really don’t think that it matters,” Shoffner said in a recent interview with the Washington Examiner. “I didn’t have anything to do with it, and I won’t be there. I’m really glad that there are these wonderful Democratic women being honored at this event. I’m going to be out campaigning in the state.”
In a wide-ranging interview, Shoffner censured leaders in Washington, including from her own party, as she seeks to run a more centrist campaign and flip a solid red seat. But the upcoming trip from a potential 2028 Democratic presidential contender to a Trump-dominated state is presenting Republicans their latest chance to brand Shoffner, a farmer by trade, a left-wing wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Harris’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Shoffner’s past includes activism for progressive causes and nearly 100 mostly small-dollar donations since the 2020 election cycle to the Democratic National Committee and an array of high-profile Democrats, including Harris, according to federal campaign finance records. She made more than two dozen contributions to the Harris and Joe Biden campaigns, including four in the 2024 cycle totaling $120. In 2020, Shoffner also gave $185 to Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) 2020 presidential campaign, $15 to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), and $70 to now-Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ).
The activism and contributions run counter to the political outsider’s image as a centrist rural Democrat working on her family farm and something Republicans say undermine her credibility. In a follow-up statement, Shoffner said the donations were in line with her support for Harris, urged Democrats to “move forward,” and criticized the effects of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on agriculture and the state.
“But I am focused on the future,” Shoffner continued. “Tom Cotton would rather stand still. Democrats need to move forward with a clear vision. Otherwise, we will lose.”
The Senate GOP’s campaign arm said in a statement that Shoffner is a “far-left fraud who wants to put Kamala Harris back in the White House.” An adviser close to the Cotton campaign said the former donations were evidence of a “pretend boycott” of Harris.
“Pretending she’s an independent who’s going to boycott the same person she gave to 25 times — it’s a farce,” the adviser added. “Everything she says is a total con job, because her record shows she’s a far-left fraud.”
While Shoffner distanced herself from Harris, she declined to make the same no-holds-barred takedown of the former vice president that she did of Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who she opposes as Democratic leader. Shoffner said Schumer “can get bent if he tries to pressure me into something that isn’t right for the people of Arkansas.” Schumer’s office did not provide comment.
Shoffner, a 38-year-old Millennial, criticized older generations of politicians in both parties for having “lost the plot,” saying they’ve “clutched their power so close to their chest, and they never bothered to mentor anybody in the generation behind them so that they could easily step into their shoes.” But Shoffner demurred whether Harris was part of the problem.
“I don’t know,” Shoffner said after a pause. “I don’t actually know a whole lot about her in general.”
She offered a similar response on whether Harris was clutching to power by openly weighing another White House run.
“I don’t know,” Shoffner said again after a pause. “I hadn’t really given it much thought. My primary criticism against the national Democratic Party and the national Republican Party is that they focus so much on what’s happening in D.C., that they forget that there are real people on the ground they’re supposed to represent.”
Shoffner did, however, detail her fears that the party was at risk of bungling its affordability messaging heading into the midterms. She urged national Democrats not to treat it “as a talking point to win elections.”
“It’s not some magic bullet that’s going to win you elections,” Shoffner said. “I think it’s about firming up some policy decisions in ways that we can talk about affordability in a, ‘here is exactly what we’re going to do’ kind of way, and that’s going to look different for every state.”
Seeking a third term at 48 years old, Cotton is comparatively young — the Senate’s median age is around 65 — and he is the youngest member of Senate GOP leadership by nearly a decade. He has declined previous presidential runs and opportunities to join the Trump administration, opting instead to rise through the ranks in the Senate to become one of the most powerful Republicans in Washington while forging close working relationships with the president and those in his orbit. He chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee and, as chairman of the Senate Republican conference, is the third-highest-ranked GOP lawmaker in the chamber.
Shoffner heaped criticism onto Cotton, whom she described as detached from Arkansas’ agricultural and broader economic challenges. She said his “minions” of “whiny, D.C. political operatives” were too preoccupied with the Harris visit and “fussing about issues over steak dinners while the rest of Arkansans are struggling.”
“Chuck Schumer may embody the out-of-touch Democratic Left,” Shoffner said. “But right now, the poster child for aloof elitism in Arkansas is Tom Cotton.”
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Shoffner, however, extended only compliments to Arkansas’ other Republican senator, Sen. John Boozman (R-AR), who chairs the chamber’s agriculture committee.
“I like Sen. Boozman. I think that he is trying to do right on behalf of not just farmers in Arkansas, but farmers everywhere,” Shoffner said. “I think he needs some help. My argument to Arkansans is, wouldn’t it be very nice if Boozman had some help from another Arkansas senator who cared about farmers?”
