Judge Carnahan's campaign website states, "Judge Chris Carnahan of Conway is the Division One State District Court Judge for Faulkner and Van Buren Counties. He has served as Circuit Judge [since 2016, according to Ballotpedia] and was twice chosen as a Special Associate Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court."

Carnahan said on his campaign website, "My judicial philosophy is simple and time tested: laws passed by the people and the legislature should be respected and interpreted with their original meaning in context. Innocent human life must be protected by judges and the guilty should be humanely punished. Finally, farmers, business, and citizens need a Supreme Court that allows them to make rational decisions about their economic interests and will protect private property rights.”

According to the Associated Press, Carnahan said he was running "to put an originalist face on the interpretation of the laws passed by the Arkansas General Assembly or by the people of the state of Arkansas,” and that the judiciary must “give deference to the legislative bodies.”

In Judge Carnahan's announcement of his candidacy he said, "I believe that interpretation that puts the actual text-- the legislation-- and puts it in the context of the time it was written--because sometimes, you know, you have to go back if it's a statute that's still on the books from 1930-- you need to interpret it under the language that happened when they passed it and the governor endorsed it... [indistinguishable].. through the representative process. I believe the role of the judge is a very minimalist role. It means that sometimes there are issues that just aren't out there for us to determine. But when there is an issue that is ripe for the court's consideration, my belief is that what you need to do is you need to give deference to the legislative bodies. They're the ones that get the first bite of the apple. They should have in mind the constitutionality of the bill when they're passing things like that, so they get the first chance to pass a bill that... passes constitutional muster. And only if it doesn't [pass constitutional muster] on challenge, should we even begin to act, but--when we do act-- it's not gonna be Chris Carnahan's preference for whether or not a law is good or bad. There may be bad results. There may be bad legislation in my view, but it doesn't mean that my personal choice should trump the will of the people who are duly elected to pass laws. I don’t ever intend on being a super-legislator and trying to enact laws from the bench, nor do I intend to go willy-nilly in unique directions that are outside of the mainstream of the legal tradition. In essence, what I want is to return the Arkansas Supreme Court in what I hope will be a majority from my election to an originalist body-- one that that tradition of interpretation of laws is well established, and has been for over 150 years."