Harvard Grad Senator Tom Cotton Looks to 2020 Election

With the contentious 2016 presidential election nearing its end, Tom B. Cotton ’99, Republican U.S. Senator from Arkansas and a Law School alumnus, may have begun to look towards the 2020 election.

Cotton, 39, recently traveled to Iowa for four days of campaign stops, concluding his visit by delivering the keynote speech at Scott County’s Republican dinner—a meal that Republican vice presidential nominee Mike Pence also attended. Cotton’s travels prompted the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and The Economist to publish articles speculating on the senator’s presidential ambitions.

Cotton's staff did not respond to request for comment.

Government and sociology professor Theda R. Skocpol said she also thinks Cotton is eyeing the 2020 race.

“I think he’s to be taken very seriously,” she said. “He’s already in Iowa, he’s laying the basis for capturing an aggressive stance on foreign policy and the following of Donald Trump in this election, but doing so in a way that will be more disciplined than [Trump].”

“He wouldn’t say things to alienate women, for example,” Skocpol added, referring to the Republican presidential nominee’s lewd comments about women in a tape first reported by the Washington Post. She also said Cotton is “more in control of his personal emotions” than Trump, who is known for firing insults at political opponents and detractors over Twitter.

Government professor Harvey C. Mansfield ’53 largely agreed with Skocpol, deeming it “unsurprising” that Cotton would seek the presidency or that other people would consider him a contender for the role.

Mansfield, who has been at Harvard for nearly five decades, said he taught Cotton as an undergraduate in “a couple of courses” and was “quite close” to him, even reading Cotton’s senior thesis. Though Mansfield could not recall the topic of Cotton’s paper, he said he well remembers Cotton’s propensities as a student.

“He’s very tall and he sat in the front row, so you couldn’t miss him,” Mansfield said. Cotton is six foot four. “He leaned forward, he had a very intent expression, watching, and he liked to talk, to raise a question. Not the simple question but the pressing, probing [one].”

“He [also] came to office hours, not everybody does that,” Mansfield added.

If Trump loses to Democratic nominee Hillary R. Clinton on Nov. 8, enabling Cotton to launch a presidential bid in 2020, the senator’s chances of success are far from clear, according to political experts.

“Cotton has been mentioned on the potential ‘wannabe’ list for 2020, but that assumes that Trump loses and assumes lots of other things, which are right now not really calculable,” Lee M. Miringoff, the director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, said. “Because, if Trump doesn’t win, it’s really cloudy to figure out where the GOP is going to go. I mean, where does the party pick up the pieces after this really fractured time for them?”

Kyle D. Kondik, a political analyst at the University of Virginia, agreed with Miringoff. Kondik noted that although Cotton has the “right profile” for Republican primaries, given his conservative views and his “hawkish” attitude towards foreign policy, the senator’s likelihood of winning the nomination is dependent on “where the party may want to go in 2020.”

Mansfield said he thought the current “split” in the Republican party might benefit Cotton as “someone new who hasn’t been on the scene before.”

“He’s quite young, maybe too young,” Mansfield said. “On the other hand, an early try at [the presidency] might still be to his advantage.”

While an undergraduate at Harvard, Cotton wrote for The Crimson’s Editorial Board, penning a 1996 article about another tall, ambitious politician from Arkansas: Bill Clinton. In the article, titled “Clinton’s Politicking Is Sincere,” the young Cotton displays an enthusiasm for both Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Cotton wrote that Bill, “as Springsteen would have it,” was “born to run” for office, and characterized Hillary as “more organized, more disciplined, more thoughtful, and more faithful” than her husband.

Cotton explained why he believes Bill is the most “successful campaigner of our time,” citing the former president’s sincerity, “fortuitous sense of timing,” work ethic, willingness to seek counsel, and “political savvy.”

“Arkansas has 75 counties and more than 5,000 voting precincts; Clinton knew the demography and politics of every one of them,” Cotton wrote. “On drives through the state with friends, he liked to tell them the vote counts he got from each precinct, and why he got them. No kidding.”

Today, one suspects, Cotton could do that, too.