State reference

How does government work in Arkansas?

Arkansas’s legislature, governor, courts, local governments and election offices, with a source for every fact.

Facts checked November 5, 2026. Anything we could not verify from a source is left out rather than guessed. Rules change, so confirm deadlines with the official election office.

135

State legislators

Legislature

4 years

Governor’s term

Governor

Counties

Local

Seats in the US House

Clerk of the House

In effect since: 1874 source

What may surprise you here

Arkansas elects its seven Supreme Court justices in statewide nonpartisan races. source
Arkansas limits legislators to 12 consecutive years, and a former legislator may return after a four-year break. source

Legislature

Name: General Assembly source
Senate: seats: 35 source
Senate: term in years: 4 source
House of Representatives: seats: 100 source
House of Representatives: term in years: 2 source
Term limits: 12 consecutive years, with a return allowed after a four-year break source

Governor and statewide offices

Term in years: 4 source
Term limit: Two terms in total source
Next regular election: 2030 source
Lieutenant governor: separate election source
Attorney general: elected source
Attorney general’s term in years: 4 source
Secretary of state: elected source
Secretary of state’s term in years: 4 source

Courts

Highest court: Supreme Court source
Intermediate appeals court: Court of Appeals source
Main trial court: Circuit Court source
How high-court judges reach the bench: nonpartisan election source

Local government

Called: county source
How many: 75 source
Cities and towns: Arkansas has 500 municipal governments and no township governments, as of the 2022 Census of Governments. source
Schools: Arkansas has 234 independent school districts, as of the 2022 Census of Governments. source

Elections

Chief election official: Secretary of State source
Who runs elections locally: County clerks and county boards of election commissioners share the work source
Primary type: open source
Regular governor elections fall in: even source
Citizen initiatives: yes source

Who holds these offices

As of November 5, 2026. Terms of the current Congress run to January 3, 2027. Winners of the November 3, 2026 elections are not shown until results are certified and they take office.

Governor: Sarah Huckabee Sanders Republican, in office since January 10, 2023. source

US senators for Arkansas
Senator	Party	Seat	Senator since	Current term ends
John Boozman	Republican	Class 3	January 5, 2011	January 3, 2029
Tom Cotton	Republican	Class 2	January 6, 2015	January 3, 2027

Members of the House for Arkansas
Seat	Member	Party	In the House since
District 1	Eric A. "Rick" Crawford	Republican	January 5, 2011
District 2	J. French Hill	Republican	January 6, 2015
District 3	Steve Womack	Republican	January 5, 2011
District 4	Bruce Westerman	Republican	January 6, 2015

Boundaries for the 119th Congress, simplified from the Census Bureau cartographic boundary file. For an exact address, use the House lookup.

Who has held each Senate seat since 2001

Each band is one person in the seat. The line marks November 2026; anything to its right is the rest of a current term. Dates through 2026 come from the congress-legislators public dataset, whose current members are matched against the Senate’s own roster on every build.

Senate seat, Class 2