Michael John Gray

Michael John Gray (born June 30, 1976) is a small business owner and the Woodruff County Judge from Augusta, Arkansas. He represented a rural area of the Arkansas Delta in the Arkansas House of Representatives from 2015 to 2017. Gray served as chair of the Democratic Party of Arkansas from 2017 to 2021. He has been Woodruff County Judge since 2023.

Early life Gray largely grew up in the Augusta School District, but graduated from Searcy High School.

He earned an Associate in Arts from Arkansas State University Beebe. He briefly attended the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and earned his Bachelor of Arts in marketing with an emphasis on logistics from Arkansas State University in Jonesboro. Gray later earned a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law.

Career After graduation, Gray returned to Augusta to work on the family farm, known as Wakefield Partners, with his wife and mother. A third-generation family farm, the operation spans of cotton, corn, peanuts, rice, and wheat. The group was named the 2014 Woodruff County Farm Family of the Year, an honor previously bestowed on his parents in 1984. Democrats held 35 of 100 seats in the House. He voted for Arkansas Works (Medicaid expansion in Arkansas) twice and was a vocal supporter of the measure. He was re-elected to full term as Chair in 2018.

Gray was narrowly defeated in his November 2018 re-election bid for the House District 47 seat by Bald Knob businessman and retired state bureaucrat Craig Christiansen.

In 2022, Gray ran as an independent for Woodruff County Judge. He defeated Republican John Ball with 1,053 (50.72%) votes to Ball's 1,023 (49.28%), a difference of just 30 votes.