Congressional candidate Jones forming veterans group, names Hollingsworth first campaign chair

Marcus Jones, the retired U.S. Army colonel running as a Democrat to replace U.S. Rep. French Hill, R-Little Rock, said he would support veterans in Congress and announced he was creating a Veterans for Marcus group.

Jones made the announcement at the MacArthur Museum of Arkansas Military History March 28. He also announced that Pulaski County Clerk Terri Hollingsworth would be his first named campaign chair. The campaign plans to name others later.

Jones said there are 45,000 veterans in the 2nd District, which he said means there are more than 100,000 military-associated voters when their families are taken into account.

“I was a soldier for close to three decades,” he said. “And now as a disabled veteran, I know that I can earn the votes of those veterans and serve them and their families far better than my opponent, Congressman Hill.”

He said he can win the race by “going to our veterans, going to their door, and telling them that they have one of their own that’s on the ballot.”

Jones served 29 years in the Army with stints that included service as a field artillery officer in Iraq and in South Korea, and as a program director at NATO’s Joint Warfare Center in Norway.

He said he had already started doing constituent service during this campaign, including helping to arrange a military funeral.

Jones faces an uphill battle in trying to unseat Hill, who was first elected in 2014. Since then, Hill’s campaign victories have included wins over two well-funded Democratic challengers: state Sen. Clarke Tucker in 2018 and state Sen. Joyce Elliott in 2020. Since then, the Republican-led state Legislature has redrawn the state’s congressional district lines.

Still, Jones believes he can win.

“If you were going to build in a lab two amazing congressional candidates, you would pick Sen. Clarke Tucker and Sen. Joyce Elliott,” he said. “But I will also tell you that times are different, and there’s a change, whether you call it a change in the wind or a sea change. Arkansans are sick and tired of extremism, and right now the Republican Party represents extremism, and we need to look at the 80% of people that are in that middle, and they need a representative, and that’s what I’m ready to do. That is how we’re going to win where it hasn’t happened before.”

In an interview, Judith Goodson, chair of Rep. French Hill’s campaign, responded by saying, “This is a conservative state, and French is a conservative lawmaker, and voters understand that French represents their interests. That’s what he was sent to D.C. to do, and if Mr. Jones believes that representing the extreme left of the Joe Biden Democratic Party is where the average Arkansas voter lands, then he’s misjudged.”

Jones was endorsed at the event by Richard Fierro, who served as a captain in Iraq under Jones when Jones was a major and the battalion executive officer, or second in command. Fierro gained notoriety in 2022 when he tackled and disarmed a shooter who killed five people inside the Club Q club in Colorado Springs.

Fierro said the two served in Iraq together in 2008 and 2009. He recalled Jones’ leadership on a Christmas Eve day when three members of the unit drowned when their vehicle turned over inside a canal.

“It’s important to lead with passion, to lead with your heart, and Marcus has always done that,” he said.