Arkansas

In the first debate of the Senate race in Arkansas, Sen Mark Pryor, chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture, said opponent first-term Rep Tom Cotton, a Republican, is more interested in foreign policy than...

A new poll says incumbent Mark Pryor, chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture, and Republican Tom Cotton are running neck-and-neck for the Senate in Arkansas. This time, Pryor is ahead, 48-46 in a poll by a company with Democratic clients, says Roll Call. The poll was conducted last week, the same time frame as a Hendix College/Talk Business poll that has Cotton ahead, 44-42, with 7 percent undecided.

A series of favorable polls for Democrat Mark Pryor, chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on agriculture, prompted Sabato's Crystal Ball to rate the race as a toss-up. Until now, it viewed the race as "leans Republican."

California growers are curtailing rice plantings by 18 percent due to drought but larger plantings in the Delta will offset much of the downturn for the sticky rice used in sushi. "The decline in California medium-grain plantings due to drought and water restrictions have attracted more acres of medium-grain rice in the Delta where plantings in 2014 are projected up 39 percent," says USDA. In the end, medium-grain area will drop 6 percent.

That's the question, and headline, at FiveThirtyEight for a look at bias in polling in Senate campaigns. Based on 147 publicly released polls since 2002, analyst Harry Enten says polls conducted by a partisan group...

The 2014 farm law ended the direct-payment subsidy and made crop insurance the major farm support. For most states, there is little difference in the state's share of the receipts.