Arkansas
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson ends Republican campaign for president after finishing 6th in Iowa
Former two-term Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson is bowing out of the race for the White House after finishing sixth in the Iowa caucuses.
Hutchinson on Tuesday suspended his long-shot campaign for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
“I am suspending my campaign for President and driving back to Arkansas. My message of being a principled Republican with experience and telling the truth about the current front runner did not sell in Iowa,” Hutchinson said in a statement.
He emphasized that “I stand by the campaign I ran. I answered every question, sounded the warning to the GOP about the risks in 2024 and presented hope for our country’s future.”
REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION PRIMARY BATTLE MOVES ON TO NEW HAMPSHIRE AFTER TRUMP ROMPS IN IOWA
Asa Hutchinson, former governor of Arkansas, speaks at the Republican Party Of Iowa’s annual Lincoln Dinner in Des Moines, Iowa, on Friday, July 28, 2023. (Rachel Mummey/Bloomberg via Getty Image)
According to the unofficial tabulation, Hutchinson won less than 200 votes out of more than 110,000 cast in Iowa’s Republican presidential caucuses.
Former President Donald Trump won a resounding victory on Monday night, topping 50% and winning a majority of the vote and shattering the previous margin of victory in a the Iowa GOP caucuses as he cruised to a crucial first victory as he aims to recapture the White House in November’s election.
TRUMP RUNS THE TABLE IN IOWA’S CAUCUSES WITH MASSIVE VICTORY
Hutchinson put his criticism of Trump front-and-center in his 2024 campaign.
At a major GOP presidential nomination cattle call in Florida in early November, Hutchinson was jeered for over a minute by the crowd after reiterating that “there is a significant likelihood that Donald Trump will be found guilty by a jury on a felony offense next year.”
“That may or may not happen. Before you vote in March and it might not make any difference to you, but it will make a difference for our chances to attract independent voters in November. It will make a difference for those down ticket races for Congress and Senate, and it will weaken the GOP for decades to come. As a party, we must support the rule of law,” he emphasized.
Hutchinson, a former federal attorney turned two-term congressman who served as Drug Enforcement Administration administrator and Department of Homeland Security undersecretary during then-President George W. Bush’s administration, launched his presidential campaign in late April in his hometown of Bentonville, Arkansas.
CLICK HERE FOR THE LATEST VOTE COUNT IN THE IOWA CAUCUSES
While he showcased his credentials as a conservative whose “mettle has been tested” over his decades of political service, Hutchinson struggled with fundraising and his poll numbers never rose above the low single digits.
Hutchinson reached the polling and donor thresholds at the last minute to qualify for August’s first GOP presidential nomination debate, but failed to make the stage at the ensuing showdowns.
And he struggled to stay relevant in a Republican presidential primary dominated by Trump and other rivals with great name recognition and larger war chests.
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a 2024 Republican presidential candidate, is interviewed by Fox News Digital in Newton, Iowa, on Sept. 16, 2023 (Fox News – Paul Steinhauser)
In late October, his campaign manager parted ways with Hutchinson over disagreements on the feasibility of a pathway towards the nomination. But Hutchinson marched on, with the help of just one or two staffers.
Hutchinson is the latest Republican presidential candidate to drop out of a race that now only has three major candidates left – Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
Former Vice President Mike Pence, who also struggled with fundraising, suspended his presidential campaign on Oct. 28, during his address to the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual leadership summit in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina ended his bid in November and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum suspended his campaign in early December.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie dropped out last week, and multi-millionaire biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy called it quits Monday night after finishing fourth in Iowa’s caucuses.
Four lesser known candidates who all failed to qualify for the debates had already suspended their campaigns.
There are former CIA spy and former Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami, Florida, business leader and quality control expert Perry Johnson, and 2021 California gubernatorial recall election candidate and former conservative talk radio host Larry Elder.
Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.
Arkansas
Arkansas lithium boom hits milestone with first buyer; 8,000 tonne-a-year deal signed
LITTLE ROCK (KATV) — A major milestone has been reached in Arkansas’ highly anticipated lithium boom—its first customers.
Smackover Lithium has secured the first binding offtake agreement with a commercial client for lithium extracted in Arkansas.
“So this lithium from Arkansas will find its way into global markets, ex China,” said Jesse Edmondson, Standard Lithium’s director of government relations.
Commodity trading firm Trafigura Trading has just signed a 10-year agreement to buy 8,000 metric tonnes of battery-quality lithium carbonate per year from Smackover Lithium’s South West Arkansas Project, a joint venture between Standard Lithium and Equinor, a Norwegian company.
For context, the U.S. as a whole only produces about 5,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium a year.
“The SWA project, once in full production, will produce 22,500 tonnes per year,” Edmondson said. “So this 8,000-tonne-per-year agreement is significant, right? That’s over a third of our annual offtake.”
Last year, Standard Lithium received a $225 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to advance lithium extraction from the Smackover Formation, a briny aquifer beneath southern Arkansas that many hail as what could be America’s best domestic source of the critical mineral.
Beating companies like Chevron and Exxon to the punch, Standard Lithium pioneered direct lithium extraction and since 2020 has operated a demo plant in El Dorado. The company is building a larger facility in Lafayette County that is set to begin operation in 2028.
“We’ve got the only proven technology that works in the Smackover that’s been done through our commercial demonstration plant in El Dorado since May of 2020. And really that has been the proving ground which has unlocked a lot of the federal opportunities for us. So we’re the largest recipient of a DOE grant in the critical mineral space in this hemisphere,” Edmondson told KATV.
“So [we’re] really excited to bring lithium production to the state of Arkansas and really back to the United States. The U.S. used to be a leader in lithium production 40, 50 years ago. So it’s time to reclaim that status,” he said.
The market price of a tonne of battery-grade lithium is volatile, but has recently ranged between $10,000 to $12,000, so the value of what Standard Lithium alone is expected to produce could exceed a quarter of a billion dollars annually.
That’s not counting what Exxon, Chevron, and other companies may produce once they get up and running.
Arkansas
Arkansas needs balanced strategy to address educator concerns about AI
Arkansas
Congressional subcommittee to hold hearing in Little Rock on ‘failures’ of local housing authority | Arkansas Democrat Gazette
Joseph Flaherty
Joseph Flaherty covers the city of Little Rock for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. A graduate of Middlebury College and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, he has worked for the newspaper since 2020.
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