PARAGOULD, Ark. — Former U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln has endorsed Dr. Terri Green for Congress in Arkansas’s First District, lending her support to the Paragould physician's effort to unseat incumbent Rep. Rick Crawford, who has held the seat since 2011.
Lincoln, who represented the First District in the U.S. House from 1993 to 1997, highlighted Green’s focus on healthcare and agriculture as reasons for her endorsement.
“I was so proud of growing up in a farm family in Helena, Arkansas. I not only experienced the important role Arkansas’s farming industry played in nutrition and feeding the world, I also learned the role that family played in caring for our grandparents, other family members and neighbors,” Lincoln said. “Although much has changed in healthcare delivery and agriculture, our small hometowns still need help and assistance with access to much-needed healthcare, complicated payment programs, markets to sell our crops to, and so much more.”
Lincoln added that she is “proud and excited” to endorse Green and encouraged voters to join her in supporting the doctor’s campaign.
For Green, the endorsement from Lincoln aligns with her messaging on rural healthcare and agricultural policy.
“Senator Lincoln grew up in this district and she represented it, so she knows what a rural hospital closing does to a community and what a bad farm bill does to a family,” Green said. “I’ve spent my life diagnosing problems and delivering solutions, even when it wasn’t what folks wanted to hear. That’s exactly what I’d do in Washington.”
Lincoln served in the U.S. Senate from 1999 to 2011, where she became the first woman to chair the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. She is a member of a seventh-generation Arkansas farm family.
The general election is scheduled for November 3, 2026, with early voting available October 19 through November 2.
Dr. Terri Green, a Democrat, is a board-certified pathologist and clinical laboratory medical director with decades of experience in Arkansas’s healthcare system, including service in rural hospitals. She earned her medical degree from the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio after completing her undergraduate studies at Baylor University. Born in El Paso and adopted at birth by a World War II Navy veteran and his wife, she now resides in Paragould with her husband, James. She is a mother, stepmother, and grandmother to six. Green’s platform focuses on healthcare, economic reforms, and accountable government.