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Derek Huber
From Ballotpedia
This page was current at the end of the individual's last campaign covered by Ballotpedia. Please contact us with any updates.
Derek Huber (Democratic Party) ran for election to the Arkansas State Senate to represent District 23. He lost in the general election on November 8, 2022.
Huber completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. Click here to read the survey answers.
Biography
Derek Huber earned a bachelor's degree from Arkansas State University in 2011. His career experience includes working as a business owner.[1]
Elections
2022
See also: Arkansas State Senate elections, 2022
General election
General election for Arkansas State Senate District 23
Incumbent Scott Flippo defeated Derek Huber in the general election for Arkansas State Senate District 23 on November 8, 2022.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Scott Flippo (R) | 79.7 | 23,951 |
 | Derek Huber (D)  | 20.3 | 6,088 | |
| Total votes: 30,039 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Democratic primary election
The Democratic primary election was canceled. Derek Huber advanced from the Democratic primary for Arkansas State Senate District 23.
Republican primary election
The Republican primary election was canceled. Incumbent Scott Flippo advanced from the Republican primary for Arkansas State Senate District 23.
Campaign themes
2022
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Derek Huber completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2022. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Huber's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.
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I'm a moderate Democrat running to give the citizens of the 23rd Senate District of Arkansas a better choice. I currently own a marketing and media company and work in communications, content production, and social media marketing. I look forward to running a hard race!
- I believe in a stronger Medicaid system for Arkansas.
- I believe it's past time to legalize, tax, and expunge in regards to Marijuana legislation.
- I believe it's time to provide prisoners and addicts a chance to succeed.
Arkansas is in need of opportunities for a vibrant middle class, and for upward mobility out of poverty. At some point in life when we are inevitably up a creek without a paddle or caught in life’s storms in a precarious rowboat, it is the oar that gives us an opportunity. The oar is not a lifeline, it will not do the work for us, but it does give us a chance to succeed and that is what the Opportunities for Arkansas platform is all about. This mindset travels across multiple areas of public policy because it's a bottom-up approach that utilizes feedback from the field to make policy decisions.
I feel very inspired by leaders like Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, MLK, JFK, and of course Lincoln. These individuals all possessed great leadership skills and were bold in their ideas. Teddy being a Progressive Republican who was booted from the party is of particular interest as his foresight on certain issues were incredible. All in all, I believe in trying things out, in calculated government investments, in testing ideas out, and that is certainly true of my admired leaders. I believe emotional intelligence is extremely underrated in politics and has led to a lot of dissolution between us and our elected officials. I believe in following the example of MLK who followed the example of Jesus who refused to lead with hate when he knew love would do better.
My ability to learn, adapt, think critically, and observe a situation from all angles with a curious mind is why I believe I will do a good job as Senator. The challenges I’ve overcome in my life have given me grit, resilience, and determination. I believe that God answers prayers in the form of opportunity, and every time an opportunity presented itself I ran to it. Even when I had to move in the middle of the night with nothing, even when I didn’t have a penny to my name, even when I woke up an only child, even when I had to spend years grinding 70+ hours a week, I just kept rolling my ball forward, working, and moving towards the next open window hoping and working for a chance to define employment on my own terms, the real American Dream. It took 18 years of scratching, clawing, learning, sleepless nights, cheap dinners, cheap cars, and learning how to humble myself and live below my means, but at 36 I’ve been doing what I love for a living for several years now. I can relate to the struggles of being the child of an addict, of being on food stamps, of trying to pay the bills and make it through school. The wide amount of experiences I have had at a young age has equipped me with emotional intelligence and an empathy-first mindset.
I want our area to grow in partnership with our local reps and senators, not in spite of it. Arkansas has a real opportunity to lead and I believe we can be the model for the country if we put down our generalized attacks and move away from “group think” long enough to remember what we have in common. The core responsibility is of course to represent your constituents, and you can't do that without open lines of communication. I’m running a modern campaign, and as a marketing professional, I know how important communication is to those you serve. I want to have open lines of communication on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, here, my Podcast on Apple & Spotify, and whatever else I can get on to talk to you. I don’t want to be a politician that gets in office and stops communicating with constituents. Dialogue within our district is essential for proper representation.
A legacy is just a product of hard work. So, I don't think about legacy, I just put my head down and continue moving forward and doing the work.
I don't really have a favorite because I have generally been someone who has read a lot of textbook-style books. I have a non-fiction-only reading policy because I find the real world fascinating and endlessly curious. I save the fiction stuff for movie time.
The Safety Dance ... I have no idea why.
The ideal relationship is one that has plenty of open communication. That communication could hopefully look like open meetings where the public is invited into more of the discussions about public policy that affects their lives. Other than that, of course, precedents apply as far as process is concerned.
Arkansas is failing to care for the health of its residents. We invest very little as a state into our Medicaid program per person. We also have a crisis in mental health and drug addiction that we can't accurately meet because of the unwillingness of the current legislature to invest in healthcare. My opponent has based his entire political career on repealing the Medicaid expansion program in Arkansas. If legislators like my opponent had actually succeeded in their mission pre-pandemic, I can't imagine where Arkansas would be right now. The Arkansas General Assembly has a lot of legislators currently that are very short-sighted. They campaigned against the Internet sales tax, but it was that tax that carried Arkansas through the pandemic. So, in short, our biggest challenge is short-sighted politicians who don't spend any time in the field talking to real people who have to carry out their policies.
I want to be the return to the middle, where compromises and apologies aren’t bad words, and where we can apply some southern hospitality, civility, and common sense to our politics.
Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.
See also
2022 Elections
External links
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Candidate Arkansas State Senate District 23 |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on May 4, 2022
Current members of the Arkansas State Senate
Leadership
Majority Leader:Blake Johnson
Minority Leader:Greg Leding
Senators
District 1
Ben Gilmore (R)
District 2
Matt Stone (R)
District 3
Steve Crowell (R)
District 4
Jimmy Hickey (R)
District 5
Terry Rice (R)
District 6
Matt McKee (R)
District 7
Alan Clark (R)
District 8
District 9
Reginald Murdock (D)
District 10
Ronald Caldwell (R)
District 11
Ricky Hill (R)
District 12
Jamie Scott (D)
District 13
Jane English (R)
District 14
Clarke Tucker (D)
District 15
Fredrick Love (D)
District 16
Kim Hammer (R)
District 17
Mark Johnson (R)
District 18
Jonathan Dismang (R)
District 19
Dave Wallace (R)
District 20
Dan Sullivan (R)
District 21
Blake Johnson (R)
District 22
John Payton (R)
District 23
Scott Flippo (R)
District 24
Missy Irvin (R)
District 25
Breanne Davis (R)
District 26
Vacant
District 27
Justin Boyd (R)
District 28
Bryan King (R)
District 29
Jim Petty (R)
District 30
Greg Leding (D)
District 31
Clint Penzo (R)
District 32
Joshua Bryant (R)
District 33
Bart Hester (R)
District 34
Jim Dotson (R)
District 35
Tyler Dees (R)
Republican Party (28)
Democratic Party (6)
Vacancies (1)
