The race to replace the retiring Larry Jegley as Little Rock's elected prosecutor was an $813,155 contest, with most of that money spent by billionaire-backed special interest groups, according to final campaign-finance reports filed Thursday with the secretary of state's office.
With 57,436 votes cast in the two counties that make up the Sixth Judicial District, Perry and Pulaski, that works out to $14.16 per vote cast in the May nonpartisan election.
Jegley, elected Sixth Judicial District prosecutor in 1996, held the office for 25 years through nine elections without ever facing an opponent.
Will Jones, a former Jegley deputy and ex-assistant attorney general, now chief deputy of the Jefferson County prosecuting attorney's office in Pine Bluff, won the contest with 53.5 percent of the vote, 30,720, to defeat public defender and former Marine Alicia "Lisa" Walton's 26,716 votes, 46.5 percent. Jones will take office at the end of the year when Jegley's term concludes.
Jones reported spending $223,330 and $226,520 in contributions, leaving him with a balance of $3,190. Walton spent $25,709 and raised $24,422, putting her campaign in the red with $1,286.
But Walton's campaign was significantly boosted through the patronage of Democratic activist billionaire George Soros, who set up the Arkansas Justice & Safety PAC in Washington, D.C., to support her with $321,000 of his own money.
The PAC, affiliated with the Black Women Forward Action Fund in Washington, led the state in independent campaign spending with $289,894, mostly on advertising -- mailers, flyers and radio ads -- promoting Walton's candidacy and attacking Jones, sometimes misleadingly, for his association with Jegley.
A Walton victory would have made her the state's first elected Black female prosecutor.
Conservative billionaires, including two from Arkansas, also put money into the race to support Jones, although Jones said he didn't seek outside help for his campaign and didn't want it.
Safer Cities Arkansas was set up by a group of Little Rock businessmen, several of them regular Republican donors. The seven-member group put up $216,000, with the largest donation of $75,000 coming from billionaire banker Warren Stephens.
Safer Cities spent $205,725, with $191,00 going toward funding a 30-second radio and TV ad, $9,725 on advertising production and $5,000 for consulting.
Also backing Jones was Fair Courts America, headquartered outside Chicago. Affiliated with Republican billionaire activist Richard Uihlein, a Schlitz beer heir and shipping supply distributor, the Fair Courts' Arkansas effort was funded solely by a $100,000 contribution from Arkansas chicken magnate Ron Cameron.
Cameron is chairman of Mountaire Corp., one of the country's largest poultry producers, and is said to be one of Arkansas' biggest political donors.
Fair Courts spent $66,594 on mailers supporting Jones while disparaging Walton as a defense attorney who is "soft on crime," a characterization her supporters labeled slander and one that was denounced by Jones.