The district took in additional counties in the southeastern portion that were part of the 4th district which in turn took the entire eastern Arkansas border. It fully encompasses the counties of Arkansas, Baxter, Chicot, Clay, Cleburne, Craighead, Crittenden, Cross, Desha, Fulton, Greene, Independence, Izard, Jackson, Lawrence, Lee, Lincoln, Lonoke, Mississippi, Monroe, Phillips, Poinsett, Prairie, Randolph, Saint Francis, Searcy, Sharp, Stone, and Woodruff. The district also encompasses parts of Jefferson county.
Character
The Mississippi Delta has long been home to American industrial agriculture, with cotton, rice and soybeans by far the biggest export from the region. The 1st District covers most of the Arkansas Delta area and stretches as far west to the Ozarks. The farming areas, despite their fertility, are generally poor by national standards, with unemployment and undereducation as some of the greatest problems. Rice farms are the amongst the greatest recipients of federal farming subsidization - and three of the top five subsidy farms in the United States are in the 1st District, receiving over $100 million since 1996. Some manufacturing has been sited in the region recently, with several auto parts factories being built in Marion and Toyota considering it as the site for its seventh North American plant. Jonesboro is the largest town, home to a sizable food processing industry with companies such as Nestle and Frito-Lay sited here. Jonesboro is also home to Arkansas State University -Jonesboro. While Jonesboro itself sports a Republican trend, along with some of the hill counties, it is balanced by the strong Democratic presence in the African American-dominated Mississippi River Delta. Until recently, this resulted is a fairly closely divided vote in national politics. However, the district has been swept up in the growing Republican trend in Arkansas. While Al Gore narrowly carried the district in 2000 with 50% of the vote, George W. Bush won the district in 2004. The district swung even more Republican in 2008, giving John McCain 58.69% of the vote while Barack Obama received 38.41% here. The Republican vote has steadily increased since then, culminating in Donald Trump tallying 65 percent of the vote in 2016, his best showing in the state.
The district was created in 1853 after the 1850 United States Census added a second seat to the state. The seat then was split between this district and the.
