Contender for state Republican Party chair is a QAnon all-star

Sarah Dunklin, who’s challenging Joseph Wood in a contest for the chairmanship of the Republican Party of Arkansas, has a wacky history as as QAnon true believer.

Dunklin’s involvement with Cyndie Abcug and a dramatic band of QAnon operatives earned her some embarrassing national attention in 2020.

Abcug is a Colorado mother convicted in a 2019 plot to kidnap her son from foster care for fear he’d be sex trafficked or sold to someone in a foreign country. (QAnon supporters are largely united by their belief that deep state Democrats sell, molest and even eat the flesh of kidnapped children, but that Donald Trump can save them.)

When Abcug’s plan to raid his son’s foster home got to law enforcement, Abcug went on the run, and Dunklin reached out offering a safe haven in Dumas. The Daily Beast reported Dunklin suffered some irrational thinking, including that the U.S. Space Force was keeping an eye on her daughter:

Dunklin’s belief in QAnon has played into her own custody fight with her ex-husband over their daughter. Dunklin has filed bizarre, sovereign citizen-style documents describing herself as a “Woman by the calling of Sarah.” She also sent rambling emails to her ex-husband’s attorney and her former mother-in-law about QAnon, McConnell, and Holmseth, who is himself wanted on a warrant for allegedly violating a restraining order.

Dunklin has claimed that her daughter is surveilled at all times by a U.S. Space Force ship with an invisibility cloak and said the day she received her Children’s Crusade position was one of her proudest. In July, a disheveled Dunklin appeared at family court clutching a dirty piece of women’s clothing and frightening a court employee who worried Dunklin might attack her, according to a sworn affidavit from a court clerk.

While it’s been an issue in a heated custody battle with her ex-husband, Dunklin’s wackiness hasn’t kept her from claiming leadership roles in the state Republican Party. She’s been the Desha County Republican party chair and is now the state party’s 1st Congressional District chair.

Her chances don’t look good, though, to lead the state party as chair. The post was left vacant last week when Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders plucked then-RPA Chair Cody Hiland to fill a state Supreme Court seat. Justice Robin Wynne‘s death in June created the vacancy, and Hiland’s appointment keeps him on the court until 2025.

Prominent Republicans including Sen. Tom Cotton and Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin joined Sanders in lining up for Wood, currently secretary of the Department of Transformation and Shared Services.

State party members are scheduled to vote on their new chair Aug. 19.