Cook: Tom Cotton’s Dubious Historical Distinction

It’s common practice when running for Arkansas political office for candidates to show voters they have deep roots in this state. For example, candidates attempt to one-up each other by proudly proclaiming how many generations their family has been in Arkansas, e.g. fourth-generation Arkansan.

Proving deep Arkansas roots has been a problem for Republic Party Senate nominee Tom Cotton. Cotton has been dogged by the fact that after graduating high school, he left the state and never came back until it was time to run for office.  His time away from Arkansas due to military service is not be counted against him though.

After doing a bit of research, I’ve come to the conclusion that Tom Cotton has a dubious distinction in Arkansas politics. Tom Cotton may be the only Arkansas U.S. Senate nominee to never have owned property in this state.

In modern times, as best I can tell, every Arkansas U.S. Senate nominee for a major political party owned property here at one time or another. And by property I mean land or a house. Perhaps someone can prove me wrong and if so I’ll update this story. But so far, it seems Tom Cotton is the only major Senate nominee to never own property here.

According to Yell County tax records, Tom Cotton does not own property in his home county and there is no record of his ever owning land or a house there.  Tax records show the home Tom Cotton currently calls his residence is owned by his father, Len Cotton.

Yell County property tax records show the only property Cotton owns in Arkansas is a Toyota Camry that is registered at his parent’s home in Dardanelle.

We reached out to Cotton’s campaign for comment on the history of his property ownership in Arkansas, but they declined to respond. Perhaps they’d rather not admit that Cotton has never owned a home in Arkansas.

“Tom Cotton puts personal ambition before people” is a theme that’s developed in the past few weeks due to actions by the freshman Congressman.

It was revealed earlier this month that Cotton skipped the iconic Bradley County Pink Tomato Festival to play golf with billionaires in California.  And we discovered that after just one month in Congress, Tom Cotton was already polling his chances to become a U.S. Senator.

By itself, the fact that Tom Cotton is likely the only U.S. Senate nominee to never own property in Arkansas might not be so damaging. Sadly, not everyone can afford a home.

But his lack of home ownership coupled with his other actions and shallow connections to Arkansas should be troublesome to voters. It reinforces, in my opinion, that Tom Cotton is just a politician who puts personal ambition above the people of Arkansas.