Fort Smith, AR-OK · the strongest Democratic and Republican presidential performances recorded here, measured three ways.
1892–2024 · 34 presidential cycles
Highest vote share
Largest share of the presidential candidate vote cast here.
Democratic
Franklin D. Roosevelt1932
75.8%
12,603 votes · D+52.3
Runner-up · Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1936 · 70.6%
Republican
Richard Nixon1972
79.4%
39,035 votes · R+59.4
Runner-up · Donald Trump, 2024 · 72.8%
Most votes
Largest number of votes cast for the party’s presidential nominee here.
Democratic
Bill Clinton1992
29,318votes
42.3% of the vote · D+1.0
Runner-up · John Kerry, 2004 · 29,153 votes
Republican
Donald Trump2020
61,918votes
71.5% of the vote · R+45.5
Runner-up · Donald Trump, 2024 · 61,825 votes
Best relative to the U.S.
This Place’s margin against the national margin in the same election — positive when it leaned toward the party more than the country did.
Democratic
John W. Davis1924
+39.4pts D vs U.S.
Place D+14.2 · U.S. R+25.2
Runner-up · William J. Bryan, 1896 · +37.7 pts
Republican
Donald Trump2020
+50.0pts R vs U.S.
Place R+45.5 · U.S. D+4.5
Runner-up · Donald Trump, 2016 · +48.6 pts
U.S. House elections · 3 House
Senate and governor results are in the Office selector at the top of this page.
U.S. House
On a multi-state Place, each row sums votes cast in the separate U.S. House races held inside the Place that year. It is a geographic vote total, not one contest or a seat tally.
Fort Smith, AR-OK · how this place’s counties split between candidates in each party’s presidential nominating contest, cycle by cycle. A primary is a contest inside one party, so it has no Democratic–Republican margin and is not part of the general-election record above.
Akashic reports votes cast, not delegates awarded. The two can disagree: Clinton led the 2008 national primary popular vote by less than half a point and did not win the nomination.
Primary returns are published at county grain and there is no roll-up above it. Each cell counts how many of this place’s counties a candidate led — a count of records, not a vote total. Who led the place as a whole is not knowable from these returns, because county rows carry a leader and a lead but no per-candidate votes.
Presidential nominating contests in Fort Smith, AR-OK, by party and cycle.
Party
2008
2012
2016
2020
2024
Democratic
Clinton320,732 votes · 3 of 3 countiesprimary
Obama2All others14,818 votes · 3 of 3 countiesprimary
Clinton2Sanders112,582 votes · 3 of 3 countiesprimary
Biden312,992 votes · 3 of 3 countiesprimary
○no contest record
Republicannot ingested
○no contest record
○no contest record
○no contest record
○no contest record
○no contest record
○no contest record — Akashic holds no result for that party and cycle here. It is not a claim that no contest was held. Telling apart a contest that was cancelled, one that went uncontested, and one simply not yet ingested needs a nominating-contest calendar, which is a separate ingest from results and does not exist yet.
Republican presidential primaries are not yet ingested — the Republican series runs from 1856 and is in scope. The row is kept so its absence is visible: a Democratic-only panel would otherwise read as though no one else held a contest.
Where a cell reads All others, no named candidate led — the source’s residual bucket did. That bucket holds every name past the ones the contest itemises, including candidates who had withdrawn but still drew votes. It is a total, not a person, so it carries no candidate colour.
Akashic carries 10 states for 2012 and 3 states for 2024. Cycles in which an incumbent president seeks renomination are thin by nature — few states run a contested primary — so a sparse column is politics, not a hole in the record.
County returns carry a leader and a lead over the runner-up, and nothing more. The full candidate field with vote shares is published at state grain — follow a cycle above to the state contest for it.
voter registration
Registered voters
By party of registration, over time
Party registration · 2026R+34.7
vs
Presidential vote · 2024R+47.7
Registration leans Republican; the presidential vote runs 13 points more Republican than the rolls.
DemocraticRepublicanUnaffiliatedOther parties
† Some years predate full county coverage; a flagged year sums only the counties reporting it.
Voter registration in Fort Smith, AR-OK
Year
Total registered
Democratic
Republican
Unaffiliated
Other
2026 (partial)
24,791
5,857
14,467
4,300
167
domestic migration
Who moves in and out
Net domestic migration over time
+832 net domestic migration · 2025
20112025
Net +2,166 over 2011–2025 · gain loss
Domestic migration in Fort Smith, AR-OK in Fort Smith, AR-OK: net domestic migration by year
Year
Net domestic migration
2011
+41
2012
−678
2013
−1,497
2014
−1,038
2015
−118
2016
−206
2017
+324
2018
−345
2019
−424
2021
+1,151
2022
+1,854
2023
+972
2024
+1,298
2025
+832
Fort Smith's metro spans the Arkansas-Oklahoma border, anchoring a manufacturing and logistics corridor where cross-state commuting patterns complicate standard district-level turnout analysis.
Across the recorded series it reached a Democratic high of 52.3 points in 1932 and a Republican high of 59.4 points in 1972. Between 2020 and 2024 the metro moved 2.2 points toward the Republican candidate; the 2024 margin was 47.7 points.
A population of 229,899, a 69% non-Hispanic-white share, and a median household income of $58,315 describe the metro. The metro's voting pattern over the last decade is most similar to that of Searcy, AR and Russellville, AR.
Akashic
Political twins — metros
The metros whose fingerprint — 2000–2024 trajectory, demographics, ancestry, religion — sits closest to this one, and why.
Twin score (0–100) = weighted cosine between tier-standardized fingerprints: presidential margins 2000–2024 with 12-yr trend and elasticity, ACS income, age, education, population and race, top reported ancestries, and religious adherence — chips name the closest-shared dimensions and the widest gap. Re-weight the groups in the twins explorer.
Compare two places, side by side
Twelve curated comparisons line up election history, demographics, and the divergence story for two places at a glance. Browse all comparisons →
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Fort Smith, AR-OK, Arkansas. Akashic. https://akashic.app/cbsa/22900/. Accessed May 20, 2026. License: CC BY 4.0.
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In 2024, Fort Smith, AR-OK, Arkansas voted Republican by 47.7 points (R+47.7), carried by the Republican candidate. Out of 84,869 votes cast, 21,312 went Democratic and 61,825 went Republican.
When did Fort Smith, AR-OK, Arkansas last vote Democratic?
The most recent presidential election in which Fort Smith, AR-OK, Arkansas voted Democratic was 1992.
How many people live in Fort Smith, AR-OK, Arkansas?
Fort Smith, AR-OK, Arkansas has a population of 229,899 according to the 2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates from the US Census Bureau.
What is the median household income in Fort Smith, AR-OK, Arkansas?
Median household income in Fort Smith, AR-OK, Arkansas is $58,315 — below the national median of $80,734. The Arkansas state median is $60,773.
What is the political history of Fort Smith, AR-OK, Arkansas?
Akashic tracks 34 presidential elections in Fort Smith, AR-OK, Arkansas from 1892 to 2024. Of those, 16 went Democratic and 18 went Republican.
