Asa Hutchinson, the former two-term Republican Governor of Arkansas, is slated to formally launch his campaign for President on Wednesday, April 26, 2023, with a kickoff in his hometown of Bentonville.
The stalwart Conservative, who announced in a television interview earlier this month that he intended to run, is a former Congressman and official in President George W. Bush’s administration.
Hutchinson has been a rare figure among announced or expected Republican Presidential hopefuls in his willingness to criticize former President Donald Trump, calling for him to drop out of the 2024 race instead of seeking another term in the White House.
The 72-year-old has said Trump should step aside because his legal troubles, including criminal charges in New York, are a distraction.
Hutchinson’s announcement will be in the tree-lined town square of Bentonville, the birthplace of Walmart. The city of nearly 57,000 people in the northwest part of the state is where Hutchinson first served as City Attorney starting in 1977 and where he first ran for office with an unsuccessful bid for local Prosecutor.
He was elected to the U.S. House in 1996, winning election to a seat his older brother, Tim, had held for two terms.
Asa Hutchinson was one of the House managers prosecuting the impeachment case against President Bill Clinton starting in 1998. He stayed in the House until 2001, when he resigned to serve in the Bush administration.
After the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, Hutchinson was selected by the National Rifle Association to lead a task force to study school safety and recommended putting armed guards at every school in the country.
He was elected Governor in 2014 and while in office signed a series of income tax cuts and restrictions on abortion. Hutchinson’s second term as Governor ended in January 2023, but he has been a defining figure of Arkansas politics for more than four decades.
Hutchinson’s campaign launch comes a day after President Joe Biden formally announced his reelection campaign. Hutchinson said that both former President Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden are not focused on the future.
“It seems to me we’ve got two candidates in the race who are focused on the past,” Hutchinson said.
Biden Announces Reelection Bid
On Tuesday, April 25, 2023, President Joe Biden formally announced that he is running for reelection in 2024, asking voters to give him more time to “finish this job” and extend the run of America’s oldest President for another four years.
Biden, who would be 86 at the end of a second term, is betting his first-term legislative achievements and more than 50 years of experience in Washington will count for more than concerns over his age.
“We, you and I, together we’re turning things around and we’re doing it in a big way. It’s time to finish the job. Finish the job.”
President Joe Biden
Biden’s campaign announcement, in a three-minute video, comes on the four-year anniversary of when he declared for the White House in 2019, promising to heal the “soul of the nation” amid the turbulent presidency of Donald Trump.
“I said we are in a battle for the soul of America, and we still are. The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom. More rights or fewer.”
President Joe Biden
Vice President Kamala Harris, who was featured prominently alongside Biden in the video, held a political rally at Howard University in Washington on Tuesday evening in support of abortion access, kicking off her own efforts to support the reelection effort.
Harris disclosed that she’s “proud to run for reelection with President Joe Biden.” She added, “Our hard-won freedoms are under attack. And this is a moment for us to stand and fight.”
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