Republican State Land Commissioner John Thurston will be Arkansas' next secretary of state, defeating Democrat Susan Inman and Libertarian Christopher Olson on Tuesday.
Thurston's win ensured that Republicans maintain a stranglehold at the state Capitol, cementing GOP officials in all seven state constitutional offices.
With 2,397 out of 2,607 precincts reporting, unofficial returns were:
Thurston 518,458
Inman 315,137
Olson 25,822
Late Tuesday night, Thurston thanked his family and opponents for a well-run campaign.
"I am so genuinely grateful for my time as Arkansas's Land Commissioner these last eight years," Thurston said in an emailed statement. "I am so excited to build on the work of my predecessor, Mark Martin, and am looking forward to serving the people of Arkansas as their next Secretary of State."
Inman congratulated Thurston late Tuesday, wished him well and offered him her assistance.
Thurston will replace Republican Secretary of State Martin, who is term-limited. Martin has held the office since 2010.
The secretary of state oversees the state's elections, provides business registration services and stewards the state Capitol grounds. The secretary of state also sits on the Board of Apportionment alongside the attorney general and governor. The three-person board is tasked with drawing state legislative lines every 10 years following the census.
Thurston, 45, of East End has been the commissioner of state lands since he became the first Republican elected to the office in 2010. Facing a term limit, Thurston ran for secretary of state because he said he had learned a lot about running a constitutional office and wanted to continue serving the public.
Prior to serving as land commissioner, Thurston worked in ministry operations at Agape Church.
Inman, 72, of Little Rock is retired. She worked as the state elections director under then-Secretary of State Sharon Priest and as the elections director in Pulaski County. She has also served as a member on both the state and Pulaski County election commissions.
Inman has also monitored elections in more than a dozen elections in eastern Europe and central Asia for the U.S. Department of State.
The third candidate, Olson, 41, of Viola, is a mental health paraprofessional.
Despite being an executive office, much of the debate in the race centered around voting reforms that would require legislative action. Inman's primary platform, which Thurston opposes, was to move Arkansas to across-the-board mail voting, similar to Colorado and Oregon.
Instead of visiting a polling location on election day or during early voting, Arkansans would receive and submit their ballots through the mail under Inman's proposal. The change would boost voter turnout and give voters more time to research and consider their decisions, she said.
[2018 ELECTION: Full Democrat-Gazette coverage of Arkansas races]
Inman also advocates for automatic voter registration.
"We need more people to participate," Inman said in an interview last month. "We need to modernize our voter registration methods, and right away, I'll say, we need to move to vote by mail."
Thurston questioned whether election security would be compromised by both of Inman's proposals. Mail voting, which is used in Arkansas for absentee voting, works on a small scale, he said, but he's against expanding it.
"Everyone that works in elections agrees that the absentee method is the most insecure," Thurston said in a recent interview.
Both candidates said they'd heard from voters about ways the business services section of the secretary of state's office could be improved, and they both said they'd "streamline" the business department.
Discussing the Board of Apportionment, they also agreed that legislative lines should coincide with local lines, keeping similar communities together.
The secretary of state serves a four-year term, earning an annual salary of $94,554.
Metro on 11/07/2018