Conrad Reynolds to challenge Rep. French Hill in GOP primary

Colonel Conrad Reynolds is making a second run for U.S. Congress.

Reynolds, who ran in the GOP primary in 2014, is once again taking on French Hill, the incumbent Republican Congressman, in the 2022 election cycle.

“Eight years ago, I ran for Congress with a plan to secure the national border with a wall, lower the deficit/debt, and strengthen our national security,” Reynolds said. “I stated that I believed my opponent (French Hill) would be all talk and little action on these topics. The voters spoke and I listened. I fully supported Mr. Hill and hoped for the best. Unfortunately, I was right. Since he became our congressman eight years ago, the Southern border has deteriorated with millions of illegals pouring in, our national debt has ballooned from $16 trillion to nearly $30 trillion, and our national security has been severely eroded from the WOKE agenda that has seeped into our national institutions.”

Reynolds also said that a Jan. 13, 2021 statement from Hill, released in the aftermath of the Jan. 6th assault on the U.S. Capitol, persuaded him to run again.

“There’s no question that the president’s hot rhetoric, prone to exaggeration and self-aggrandizement, has been unattractive and in many ways divisive. The president in his post-election fiction and folly suggesting a landslide victory and a stolen election, in my view, sullies his four years of economic and national security accomplishments,” Hill said at the time, according to Reynolds.

“I am the only American First candidate in the race. Hill is more in step with ‘never-Trumpers,’ such as Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney, than he is with the voters of the 2nd District. His vote to certify Joe Biden as President and his vote to create the anti-Trump January 6th Commission proves that we need a change,” Reynolds said.

In 2014, Hill received 55.1% of the vote in the Republican primary for U.S. Congress. Rep. Ann Clemmer finished with 22.8% of the vote and Reynolds earned 22.1% of the primary vote.

Reynolds served as a U.S. Army military intelligence officer for 29 years and later served as an intelligence consultant. He is the recipient of the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Bronze Star Medal, and the CIA Seal Medallion. He also founded the Arkansas Military Veterans’ Hall of Fame in 2011 and served as its director until 2020.

Reynolds lives in Conway and is married with four children. He earned his B.S. from the University of Central Arkansas and later received an M.B.A. from Touro University. Reynolds retired from the U.S. Army as a Colonel on January 1, 2009.

There are no other declared candidates in the Republican primary for the Second District Congressional seat. Quintessa Hathaway has announced as a Democratic candidate.