Democrats Scramble in South to Hold Senate

Sen. Mark Pryor, speaking to a group of college officials, recently offered a biblical solution to Washington's gridlock. Politicians should follow the teachings of Jesus, the two-term Democrat said, quoting from the Sermon on the Mount.

Dale Leatherman, an administrator at a Baptist college, warmed up to the Arkansas senator after those remarks but said he still couldn't imagine voting for Mr. Pryor next year.

"Even though he personally supports conservative ideas," Mr. Leatherman said, "I struggle with the fact that he's part of a party that does not."

The ability of Democrats to keep control of the Senate in 2014 will depend largely on elections in southern states like Arkansas. One measure of the difficulties facing the party is that even a lawmaker like Mr. Pryor, a Scripture-quoting evangelical, is viewed by some conservative voters with suspicion. 

Three of the four most vulnerable Senate Democrats in the 2014 election are from the South. Mr. Pryor and Sens. Kay Hagan of North Carolina and Mary Landrieu of Louisiana—as well as Democratic candidates in Kentucky and Georgia—must contend with the dismal approval ratings of President Barack Obama in their home states. They face increased political pressure from the problem-ridden rollout of the health-care law.

Republicans believe Arkansas is their best shot at knocking off an incumbent, making Mr. Pryor a prime target in the battle for control of the chamber. The GOP needs to add six seats to win a majority in the Senate, an achievable but far-from-certain goal. It is hard to see how they could hit that mark if they can't win here.

Five years ago, Mr. Pryor coasted to a second term, but it was a different world. In 2008, Congress had dozens of conservative Democrats; the Tea Party had not yet made a mark on the GOP; and Arkansas remained a Democratic Party bastion, a holdout against the GOP tide that swept the South over the last half century.

Now, Mr. Pryor, son of one of Arkansas' most popular political figures, is the state's remaining Democrat in Congress and one of the last of Washington's "Blue Dogs," as the dwindling ranks of conservative Democrats are known. The state still has a Democratic governor, but since Mr. Obama was first elected president, Arkansas' state legislature and U.S. House delegation have flipped from blue to red.

Porter Briggs, a Little Rock businessman and lifelong Democrat, had always supported Mr. Pryor and Mr. Pryor's father, David Pryor, a former senator and governor. But disappointed in Mr. Pryor's support of the health-care law, Mr. Briggs said he let the senator know he would back his likely 2014 opponent, Republican Rep. Tom Cotton. The Arkansas Poll in October found voters evenly split between the two men.

"I told him I felt he's listening to the Democratic Party, which has left us," Mr. Briggs said. "It swung to the left and Mark went with them."

The 2014 midterm elections will test whether Democrats can stop or slow the march of the South's swing voters into the GOP, an exodus that accelerated in some places during the Obama presidency.

"The question is: Does the rightward shift in Arkansas voters solidify, to continue beyond this particular president, who continues to be peculiarly unpopular here, or can the Democrats white-knuckle it to 2016 and win back at least some of the brand loyalty they enjoyed for more than 100 years?" said Janine Parry, director of the Arkansas Poll, a nonpartisan survey conducted by the University of Arkansas.

The state has a rich history of prominent Democrats, including former President Bill Clinton, who served as governor, Sens. Dale Bumpers and William Fulbright, and Rep. Wilbur Mills. But Arkansas voters have mostly supported Republicans for president since the 1960s, with the exception of Mr. Clinton in 1992 and 1996, and former Alabama Gov. George Wallace in 1968.

Today, the political terrain of Arkansas isn't hospitable to the coalition of urban, secular voters who helped put Mr. Obama in the White House. Only one city, Little Rock, has a population of more than 100,000 people. The rest of the state, from the Ozarks in the north and west to the fertile Arkansas Delta of the east, is thoroughly rural. Its population is 80% white.

More than half of residents say they are evangelical Christians, making Arkansas one of the two most evangelical states in the U.S., along with Oklahoma, according to a 2007 survey by the Pew Research Center.

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