BENTONVILLE, Ark. -- The sheriff's race in Benton County pits three men against one another: one the current sheriff, one his predecessor, and a police officer who worked for them both. All three candidates are running as Republicans, so the race could be decided in May.

Benton County Sheriff Race Could Be Decided In Primary

We asked the current sheriff, Keith Ferguson why he is still the man for the job.

"We've addressed the crime. We're consistently addressing the crime and coming up with new ways to address the crime. We have advanced so much in the last five years toward the 21st century, and we're working every day toward that," Ferguson said.

Andy Lee served as sheriff for 12 years before deciding not to seek re-election. 40/29 news talked to him about his desire to return to office.

"We don't have progressive leadership over there. We just have somebody that sitting in a position of a sheriff and crime is going up and I think we need to get some aggressive crime fighting back into this county," Lee said.

Rogers police officer Kelley Cradduck spoke to 40/29 about the fresh perspective he would bring to the office.

"First of all, we're facing some problems that, if we aren't careful, we'll have huge problems in ten years. We can't continue to approach these same problems with the same type of thinking that got us here in the first place," Cradduck said.