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Cotton: 40–50% 50–60% 60–70% 70–80% Pryor: 50–60% 60–70% | |||||||||||||||||
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Elections in Arkansas |
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The 2014 United States Senate election in Arkansas was held on November 4, 2014, to elect a member of the United States Senate to represent the state of Arkansas, concurrently with the election of the Governor of Arkansas, as well as other elections to the United States Senate in other states and elections to the United States House of Representatives and various state and local elections.
Incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Pryor ran for re-election to a third term in office. He was unopposed in the Democratic primary; U.S. Representative Tom Cotton was also unopposed for the Republican nomination. While the race was initially expected to be close, Cotton prevailed by a margin of 57% to 39%.[1] The Associated Press called the race for Cotton immediately after the polls closed.[2] This marked the first time since Reconstruction in 1877 that Republicans held both Senate seats in Arkansas, and the Arkansas congressional delegation was entirely Republican. Pryor drew many comparisons to Blanche Lincoln, also a Democratic senator from Arkansas who was ultimately unseated in 2010, with Pryor receiving a similar fate.
Elected at age 37, Cotton surpassed Connecticut's Chris Murphy as the youngest incumbent senator at that time and remained so until the seating of Missouri’s Josh Hawley at the opening of the 116th United States Congress.