After six terms in the Arkansas House of Representatives, Democrat incumbent Steve Magie is racing against Republican candidate Kim Slaughter for the District 56 seat. 

The House District 56 seat is one of the few districts that covers part of Conway, including most of the downtown area.

“I have a very competitive House seat,” Magie said. “I think it’s important for Democrats to at least keep the seats that we have, and I think that I have the opportunity to continue to do that.”

Slaughter, 55, ran for the House in 2022. She lost the Republican primary election to attorney Trent Minner. 

Slaughter said she decided to run again because community members “encouraged” her.

“I had several people call me and tell me they would really like for me to run,” she said. “I really believe that we need a fresh face in that position. He’s been in there for a long time. He’s a much, much older gentleman.”

Magie has served in the Arkansas House of Representatives since 2012 and is the longest-serving Democrat.

“I’m not sure if he’s really in tune with the issues that everyday people struggle with,” Slaughter said. “He may be a Democrat, and I may be a Republican, but I feel like I am much more in tune with the women’s issues and the struggles that women face.”

Slaughter said she is passionate about giving women access to information about contraceptives and decisions such as adoption. 

“I feel like there’s an opportunity there to meet in the middle and come together,” Slaughter said. “I’m very passionate about adoption, very passionate about the abortion issue. Obviously, I’m not for abortion. I would be dead. I wouldn’t be here.”

Slaughter said people spend so much time arguing over abortion that “we’ve sort of forgotten about the other things that we can do.”

Slaughter said her goal is to create an app that allows women access to information about contraceptives, pregnancy and adoption.

“We can have an app where they can go on and talk to someone in the anonymity of their own home behind the phone, and maybe the app can even connect them with that couple that’s wanting a baby,” she said.

Slaughter said that while she believes women should be able to have easy access to contraceptives and adoption options, she does not believe abortion should be an option.

“I think that it’s a life period,” she said. “But I do know that some Republicans are very much against even the morning-after pill. I’m not against that. I’m against abortion period, at any stage.”

Magie, 71, said abortion “needs to be legal and rare and still needs to be up to the woman.”

Magie, a member of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Conway, said his faith influences his beliefs. 

“I believe life begins at conception and should be protected by every means,” he said. “But there again, it’s not my choice to make that decision.”

Both Magie and Slaughter have businesses in Conway. 

Magie is an ophthalmologist and part-owner of Magie-Smith-Charton Eye Clinic. 

“I’ve been practicing medicine 44 years now, since 1980, so that’s the expertise that I bring to the table,” Magie said. “My big issues are things like patient access, access to quality care — affordable care. Another big issue I think we’ll work on a lot this next year is prior authorization requirements, where there needs to be a doctor and a patient in the room to make a decision, not an insurance company on the outside.”

Slaughter owns Toadsuck Mini Golf with her husband, John Miller. Slaughter said they are from Arkansas but landed back in Conway in 2018.

“We decided that we wanted to build something that would be entertainment for families — families of all ages,” she said. “We do not serve alcohol. It’s a very family-friendly facility.”

Slaughter said her main focus has been the mini golf business, which started in 2020, but she does work with clients at Blue Focus Marketing, her social media business that started in 2008.

Slaughter said there are many lawyers in politics, and “there needs to be more business owners.”

“As a business owner, I feel like we have a really good grasp on finances and what it takes to run a business successfully,” she said. “Running a business successfully can be often like running a state successfully — making sure that you manage your money properly, making sure that you make wise decisions, making sure that the decisions that you make are going to be a benefit to the whole and not just benefit to some and the detriment to others.”

Slaughter studied Business and Marketing at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. 

She said her main goal is “making it less expensive and more affordable to run a business here in Arkansas.”

“I think that that would generate many more businesses that would come to the state which would help our state financially,” she said.

Slaughter said she attends Friendship Baptist Church and volunteers with several local nonprofits such as the Harbor Home and United Way.

“I attend just about every charity event that we have here in Faulkner County because I’m a big supporter of things like that,” she said.

Magie said he is passionate about public education and voted against the LEARNS Act.

“It’s going to take away from public schools, particularly rural schools that have limited tax base and limited revenue,” he said. “I have a hard time understanding that a party that touts themselves as fiscally conservative people can pass a bill that our own Department of Education said in the first year it adds $250 million to the budget.”

Magie said he is a UCA alumnus and got his medical degree from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

Magie and his wife, Becky Magie, have four children — three of which attended UCA. Magie said some of his grandchildren also attend UCA.

He said, “We [Conway] have a lot of colleges and are blessed. We have a lot of really forward-thinking, innovative people in those positions of leadership and we have to plan for the future.”

Magie said he plans to run until he is out of terms, which are two years each.

“I can serve eight terms, and I fully intend to do it if I can get reelected,” he said.

The general election is Nov. 5, and early voting begins Oct. 21. The voter registration deadline is Oct. 7.