{"id":70500,"date":"2026-03-31T13:00:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T18:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/31\/profanity-fueled-social-media-posts-heat-up-arkansas-republican-runoff-for-secretary-of-state\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T13:00:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T18:00:18","slug":"profanity-fueled-social-media-posts-heat-up-arkansas-republican-runoff-for-secretary-of-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/31\/profanity-fueled-social-media-posts-heat-up-arkansas-republican-runoff-for-secretary-of-state\/","title":{"rendered":"Profanity-fueled social media posts heat up Arkansas Republican runoff for secretary of state"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Confrontational and expletive-laden social media posts by a Republican candidate for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/us\/us-regions\/midwest\/arkansas\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Arkansas secretary of state<\/a> are in the campaign spotlight in a GOP nomination runoff election in the solidly red state.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. Army veteran Bryan Norris is facing off against state Sen. Kim Hammer in Tuesday&#8217;s ballot box battle for the Republican nomination in the race to succeed Secretary of State Cole Jester.<\/p>\n<p>Both candidates for the top elections job in Arkansas have spotlighted their support for President <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/category\/person\/donald-trump\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Donald Trump<\/a> but have offered different plans for implementing the president&#8217;s push to overhaul voting.<\/p>\n<p>Hammer enjoys the backing of top Arkansas Republicans, including Sen. Tom Cotton, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Lt. Gov. Leslie Rutledge, Attorney General Tim Griffin and Jester.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/elections\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>HEAD HERE FOR THE LATEST FOX NEWS REPORTING FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The current secretary of state, in endorsing Hammer, called on Norris to drop out of the race over his controversial past social media posts.<\/p>\n<p>Among those posts is one responding <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/person\/c\/tom-cotton\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">to Cotton<\/a> where Norris, pointing to the senator, wrote, &#8220;With all due respect, and from one combat veteran to another &#8230; F&#8212; You Tom!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/politics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>CLICK HERE FOR POLITICAL COVERAGE FROM FOX NEWS<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Asked about the profane comment, Norris told the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.camdenarknews.com\/news\/2026\/mar\/16\/cotton-backs-hammer-over-norris-in-arkansas\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Camden News<\/a> it stemmed from long-standing frustrations he had with the senator after he retired from the Army.<\/p>\n<p>In an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=AazJNXPd_fY&amp;t=111s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">interview with KATV<\/a>, Norris acknowledged using &#8220;some salty language from time to time&#8221; but pledged, &#8220;you\u2019re never going to hear me talk or speak that way again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Norris, who is running as an outsider and is backed by far-right Trump allies, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, and Hammer were the top two vote-getters in Arkansas&#8217; March 3 GOP secretary of state primary. Because no candidate topped 50%, Norris and Hammer advanced to the runoff election.<\/p>\n<p>The winner will face off in November&#8217;s general election against Democrat Kelly Grappe, who ran unopposed for her nomination.<\/p>\n<p>The eventual Republican nominee will be considered the clear frontrunner for the general election in Arkansas, where no Democrat has won statewide since 2010.<\/p>\n<p><i>The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Confrontational and expletive-laden social media posts by a Republican candidate for Arkansas secretary of state are in the campaign spotlight in a GOP nomination runoff election in the solidly red state. U.S. Army veteran Bryan Norris is facing off against state Sen. Kim Hammer in Tuesday&#8217;s ballot box battle for the Republican nomination in the &#8230; <a title=\"Profanity-fueled social media posts heat up Arkansas Republican runoff for secretary of state\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/31\/profanity-fueled-social-media-posts-heat-up-arkansas-republican-runoff-for-secretary-of-state\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about Profanity-fueled social media posts heat up Arkansas Republican runoff for secretary of state\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}