Hallie Shoffner is running for Senate in Arkansas as a lifelong farmer who had no plans to run for office. But Shoffner spent years working as a left-wing activist—and hired a marketing firm to build a "new brand" as "FarmHerHallie," a Washington Free Beacon review found.
Shoffner has centered her campaign against Republican incumbent Tom Cotton on her farming background. "My whole life, I've been a rice and soybean farmer," Shoffner said in a November campaign video. "She's not a politician, she's not much for political parties, and she's never run for office in her life—the only thing Hallie ever wanted to do was farm," her campaign site read at the time.
Shoffner did grow up on her family's farm in eastern Arkansas. But she did not initially follow in her parents' farming footsteps. Shoffner was drawn to activism as a master's student at the University of Arkansas' Clinton School of Public Service, where she developed fundraising strategies for PROMSEX, a Soros-funded social justice nonprofit in Peru. In a since-deleted 2010 blog, she touted marching "in the FRONT of Lima's 9th Annual Gay Pride Parade"—which the nonprofit funded—and "celebrating being gay, lesbian, transexual, bisexual."
Shoffner went on to serve as executive director of Seis Puentes, an Arkansas nonprofit that helps illegal immigrants navigate U.S. government systems and "engage them in the process," as Shoffner put it in a 2012 interview. After a stint as deputy campaign manager of a Democratic state legislator's unsuccessful campaign for mayor of North Little Rock, Shoffner joined an advertising and public relations agency in 2013.
It wasn't until 2016 that Shoffner returned to the farm as her parents struggled to run it. Around that time, she started working with a local marketing firm to build a "new" personal "brand": "FarmHerHallie." Shoffner's testimonial lauding the firm, complete with a photo of the Democrat posing in front of farm equipment, remains on its website. The firm's founder identified Shoffner as "the first person that hired me to work with her on her branding" in a 2022 Instagram post.
For years, Shoffner published blogs on the website FarmHerHallie.com, which she said would "bridge the divide between 'big ag' and big climate action." The site's header read, "Big Farming, Big Climate Action" and identified Shoffner as a "Southern Farm Operator, Climate Activist." Shoffner's blogs, meanwhile, featured headlines like "What to do about climate anxiety," and "I'm a 'big ag' farmer and I advocate for climate action."
Shoffner's climate advocacy continued into 2021, when she served as a director of the Arkansas Citizens Climate League. The group lauded her as a "committed climate solutions advocate" in May 2021—the same time it was sponsoring anti-racist study groups.
Shoffner has since deleted both the website and a "FarmHerHallie" Instagram account, though she has used the hashtag "FarmHerHallie" in campaign TikToks and Instagram posts. Shoffner also amended her campaign site sometime in the last six weeks to remove the portion that read, "the only thing Hallie ever wanted to do was farm," internet archives show. The portion now reads, "She wanted to farm."
The revelations undermine Shoffner's campaign image, particularly in a state that backed President Donald Trump by more than 30 points in 2024. Shoffner appears to understand that climate activism does not sell in Arkansas: Her campaign site's "issues" page does not mention the word climate, and her LinkedIn page does not mention her work experience prior to farming.
Neither Shoffner nor the marketing firm she worked with, Laura Kirk Marketing Group, responded to requests for comment.
