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The 2016 presidential contest pitted a former Arkansas first lady against a New York billionaire.
In the Natural State, as in the nation, Republican Donald Trump emerged, victorious. Statewide, the developer/reality television star captured 60.4% of the vote.
Pulaski and Jefferson counties were blue islands on Election Day, surrounded by a sea of crimson. Other than a string of six Delta counties along the Mississippi River, Arkansas’ remaining counties went red.
Since leaving Little Rock for Washington, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton had added several lines to her already substantial resume, including eight years in the White House as first lady, eight years in the U.S. Senate and four years as secretary of state.
Despite being on the world stage, she had maintained many friendships back in Arkansas. These allies turned out in force once she entered the 2016 race. Dubbed the Arkansas Travelers, this army of decades-long supporters fanned out across the country, promoting her candidacy in one pivotal state after another. They also helped her at home, delivering 73 of the state’s 75 counties — and 66% of the vote — in the March 1 preferential primary.
While Democrats largely united behind Clinton, Republicans were splintered after the departure from the race of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. His exit, following a ninth-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, set off a mad dash for Arkansas’ votes.
The three front-runners — Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida — all visited the state during the primary campaign’s final days. Trump would go on to win 32.8% of the vote, followed by Cruz at 30.5% and Rubio at 24.9%. The results highlighted Arkansas’ demographic divisions, with Rubio carrying Pulaski and Benton counties and Cruz capturing a cluster of counties in Central Arkansas. The Texan also led in Miller, Washington, Crawford, Craighead and a handful of other counties.
Trump had won everything else, including most of the state’s most rural areas.
Once the primaries were over, Republicans united behind Trump. Mississippi County Republican Party chairwoman Dorothy Crockett, mother of six, grandmother of 15 and great-grandmother of 41, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that she’d backed the New Yorker from the beginning and wouldn’t grow wobbly. “I’ll be a Trump supporter to the end,” she said.
This Page 1 of the Nov. 9 Democrat-Gazette reports her candidate’s success.
Crockett’s loyalty didn’t go unnoticed. She was tapped to be a Trump delegate at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland and was on hand, months later, for Trump’s inauguration. (She died this Sept. 30 at age 84.)
Other Arkansas Republicans were also rewarded. Gov. Asa Hutchinson and state Attorney General Leslie Rutledge got prime-time speaking slots at the convention. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a frequent Trump surrogate on cable news, would go on to work in the White House, eventually serving as his press secretary.
— Frank E. Lockwood
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