Arkansas Democrats will gather this week to elect a new leader for the first time since the party held a majority in both chambers of the Legislature and five of the state's six congressional offices.

A lot has changed since 2005, the last election.

Even though the Democratic Party of Arkansas had a hold on the Governor's Mansion between 2007 and 2015 -- during which time party chairmen were not elected but appointed by the governor, Mike Beebe -- Democrats saw their majorities in the Legislature collapse. Democrats also hold none of the state's seven constitutional offices or seats in Congress.

The front-runners in the race for party chairman are House Minority Leader Michael John Gray, an Augusta farmer, and Denise Garner of Fayetteville, an executive at a nonprofit. Each says the future of the party will rely on empowering a base of county offices.

Also running are Turrell Mayor Dorothy Cooper, Faye Duncan-Daniel of Phillips County, Macleod Sawyer of Washington County and Vincent Tolliver of Pulaski County.

"We have never been in this position before. We've never had an election like this before," said outgoing Chairman Vincent Insalaco, who was appointed by Beebe in 2013. Insalaco is not officially backing any candidate.

For most of the party's history dating back to post-Civil War Reconstruction, the chairmanship largely has been administrative, while Democratic governors or other high-profile politicians were the "titular" heads of the party, Insalaco said.

Now, he said, the chairman will serve both roles.

After Democrats lost the governor's race in 2014, the past two years have been spent approving new party rules to replace an antiquated system, Insalaco said. The number of county organizations also has grown, from 27 to 62, he said.

Unlike the Republicans, the Democratic chairman position is unpaid, raising questions about whether the role is a full-time job.

Insalaco, a businessman from North Little Rock, said he regularly worked more than 40 hours a week on party business.

Garner, before quickly turning to praise Gray's work in the Capitol, said she does not believe a sitting legislator should simultaneously try to run the party. With grown children and a working husband, Garner said she would have more time to focus on the party position.

Having an elected official would be an "asset" atop the party, Gray said, though he plans to step down from his role as the House minority leader if elected to the party position.

In an interview in his hometown of Augusta -- where he got his political start on the City Council -- Gray fielded calls to discuss legislation, his party race and the planting season at his farm, while acknowledging the workload he is seeking.

"It's what I do," he said. "I can't run from the fact that I'm busy."

Speaking to a reporter at a Little Rock coffee shop on her way home from a campaign stop in Stuttgart, Garner trumpeted her experience in the nonprofit field. She founded Feed Communities in 2011 with the hope of expanding access to nutritious foods in Northwest Arkansas.

"We have the perfect opportunity, that this is the perfect time to be looking at the state party as a startup nonprofit," Garner said. "We've got to relook at our vision and our mission and rebrand. I think that we've got to have a strategic plan and a budget, good descriptions, the things that most startup businesses or nonprofits have to have."

A weak point for the party is communication between party officials in Pulaski County and outlying areas of the state, Garner said. County leaders have complained to her of being unable to reach people at headquarters, she said, adding that more can be done to collaborate with grass-roots movements, naming Pantsuit Nation and Indivisible.

The hubs of Democrats in central and Northwest Arkansas do need to work more harmoniously with rural areas, Gray said, though he spoke of the divide in more ideological terms. In Woodruff County, where he ran unopposed last year, voters went with Republican Donald Trump after supporting President Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012.

While not suggesting the party turn away from its traditional social stances, Gray said the "hot button issues" have defined how people view the party, while economic issues are drivers of support at the polls.

"Look, my grandmother came through the Depression and she said anybody that lived through that would never vote anything but Democrat, and we've lost that somewhere," Gray said. "We rode this wave of success to a point that we forgot what we did to get here, and that was fight for the people.

"And we just haven't had to have that in the past."

Neither candidate made any promises toward regaining seats in the Legislature, constitutional offices or Congress, yet both said recruiting quality candidates in more districts would be a part of their strategy.

In 2016, fewer than half of the races for the state Legislature had candidates from both major parties. Democrats fielded only a single candidate in the state's four U.S. House races, and a Democrat ran for U.S. Senate.

"I would think anyone running now, given our ranks in the Legislature, is going to have to spend a lot of time recruiting people," said Vaughn McQuary, who was party chairman from 1998 to 2001.

Both candidates said they did not fit the "establishment" label, and they heaped praise on each other..

Gray has gathered the endorsements from the majority of Democrats serving with him in the House, according to a letter naming 54 endorsements from party members. In her own letter, Garner listed 99 endorsements, including four state senators.

On Saturday, about 230 members of the State Committee will gather in North Little Rock to elect the next party chairman by secret ballot, according to a party spokesman. It's unknown how many committee members have endorsed other candidates.

"I got so much I need to do now, that I don't need to run, but I got that feeling and it just won't go away," said Cooper, the Turrell mayor.

Tolliver also put his name in the running for the National Democratic Party chairman, though he was kicked out of the race in January after criticizing the eventual runner-up, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota, for his Muslim faith.

Metro on 03/19/2017