With 838 of 841 precincts reporting, state Rep. Bruce Westerman had a commanding lead over challenger Tommy Moll in the Republican primary for the state’s 4th Congressional District nomination.

The unofficial and incomplete results were:

Westerman. . . . . . . . . . . 18,225 Moll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15,324

Westerman claimed victory at his Hot Springs watch party about 11 p.m. Tuesday.

“I’m ready to move on to the general election. It’s time to move on and get ready for the next one,” Westerman said. “We’ve expended a lot of effort, but I think it’s been good for us. We’ve created a great network across the district.”

Moll, who had been eagerly watching the polls throughout Tuesday, said in an emailed statement: “My thanks to the people of the Fourth District of Arkansas for their support tonight and these past nine months. I offer my sincere congratulations to Bruce Westerman for running a successful campaign and wish him the best as he represents our party in the general election.

Westerman, a state representative from Hot Springs, got a late start on fundraising for his campaign in the 4th District, which sprawls across 33 counties in southern and western Arkansas, because of an ethics rule that does not allow sitting state representatives to raise funds while the Legislature is in session. Several attempts to change the rule failed or lost steam during this year’s fiscal session.

Moll, a Hot Springs energy investor, had a leg up in fundraising. The 31-year-old has deep roots in Arkansas’ energy industry, claiming Harvey Crowley Couch, who started the company that eventually became Entergy, as his great-grandfather.

Westerman’s campaign called Moll’s credentials into question several times throughout the campaign, pointing out that he had lived in Arkansas for a little more than a year before announcing his campaign. But Moll used the opportunity to tout his six-generation roots and explained his absence with his college credentials — including an Ivy League law degree — and work obligations.

Moll ended his last fundraising report with almost $345,000 in his coffers, compared with Westerman’s $83,295.

Moll made a last-minute push spending thousands of dollars on a television commercial that attacked Westerman’s record on the state’s private-option Medicaid expansion. Westerman rebutted the commercial with radio and print advertisements and by word of mouth, but he didn’t have deep enough pockets for an extensive answer with television commercials.

Westerman, the House majority leader, voted against the creation of the health-insurance program in 2013 and against funding the program during this year’s fiscal session more than a dozen times. The private option uses federal Medicaid dollars to allow poor Arkansans to purchase health insurance through a state-run insurance exchange.

Moll’s commercial highlighted Westerman’s involvement with the working group formed to look for options to expand Medicaid through the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare by opponents. It also targeted a bill Westerman sponsored that would have replaced the private option, which didn’t make it out of committee.

Moll’s campaign maintained that Westerman’s involvement in the two bills, however briefly, meant there was only one candidate in the race who had always “stood against Obamacare.”

Westerman will face Democrat James Lee Witt, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Bill Clinton, and Libertarian Ken Hamilton, an El Dorado accountant, in the November general election. The seat was left open when sitting U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton, a Republican, announced his bid against Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor last year.

A section on 05/21/2014