Former President Bill Clinton said it was unlikely he could win the governorship of his home state of Arkansas were he to run today,
Politico reported. The five-time governor and two-term president acknowledged that Arkansas had become solidly Republican.
"I was governor a long time. The people of my native state were good enough to elect me five times. Based on recent events, I don't know if I could win again down there," he told a Georgetown University audience on Tuesday during a question and answer session.
Since the November midterm elections, Clinton antagonist Asa Hutchinson has become governor, Republicans control both chambers of the state legislature, and all the state's U.S. House seats are in GOP hands as are its two Senate seats.
Clinton won Arkansas when he ran for president in 1992 and for a second term in 1996.
But since 2000 Republicans have carried the state in presidential elections, according to Politico.
A
2013 Gallup Poll found that Arkansas was one of the 10 most conservative states in the country. The state has fewer than 3 million residents and is close to 80 percent white, with about half the population earning under $40,000 a year, according to the
U.S. Census Bureau.
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