It's time for an unvarnished look at last week's elections in Arkansas.
The outcome was all too predictable -- a total Republican rout.
Arkansas voters did show up for this year's midterm elections. Rather, half of them did.
Official turnout, according to the secretary of state's office, came in at 50.12 percent of the electorate.
Considering all the hype that preceded this historic midterm, surely that represented a whopping increase over the midterm turnout four years ago.
Wrong.
It was actually a little less than the 50.43 percent that showed up for the 2014 midterm vote.
While national turnout numbers were the best since the Watergate era, the elections in Arkansas just didn't spark the same level of interest.
That blue wave that forced a power shift in the U.S. House of Representatives did not touch Arkansas, which will return its four Republican congressmen to Washington.
All four won by substantial margins.
Rep. Rick Crawford secured the widest margin, 69.03 in the 1st District. Reps. Bruce Westerman, 4th District, and Steve Womack, 3rd District, pulled 66.71 and 64.85, respectively.
Even Rep. French Hill, whose 2nd District seat was most targeted by Democrats, won 52.14 percent of the vote.
As far as the congressional races were concerned, Arkansas put up a solid red wall.
Voters here also put all Republicans in the state's constitutional offices again this year.
Led by Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who easily won a second term with 65.37 percent of vote, incumbent Republicans reclaimed the offices of attorney general (Leslie Rutledge), lieutenant governor (Tim Griffin), auditor (Andrea Lee) and treasurer (Dennis Milligan).
New to the Arkansas statehouse will be Republican Tommy Land as commissioner of state lands. In a new job will be John Thurston, the current land commissioner, who won secretary of state.
It was a Republican sweep of all the constitutional offices with none of them taking less than 60 percent of the vote in their respective races.
The state Legislature will remain under Republican control, too.
What all of this means to the future political environment in Arkansas will likely be its further reddening.
Republicans will hold all the cards when new boundaries are drawn for the Legislature and state congressional districts after the 2020 Census.
That's just the reality facing state Democrats who are licking their political wounds post-election.
Perhaps the most surprising outcome of the election was in the one nonpartisan race statewide.
Arkansas Supreme Court Justice Courtney Goodson won re-election with 55.66 percent of the vote.
Remember, she lost a bid two years ago to be chief justice. And this year she was forced into a runoff that played out alongside the general election.
She waged a campaign not only against her opponent but also against dark money and special interests that fed opposition to both her 2016 and 2018 races.
The outcome seemed as much a reaction against the dark money as a rebuke of Goodson's opponent or an embrace of her.
And then there were those ballot issues. Three passed. Two were expected to be favored by voters, the third less so.
The ones that looked like sure bets will require voters to show photo IDs at the polling place in order to vote and slowly raise the state's minimum wage.
The first, Issue 2, was unnecessary, given an existing state law requiring such identification. Nevertheless, the constitutional amendment won favor with 79.5 percent of voters.
Issue 5, the minimum wage question, passed with 68.44 percent of the vote. The initiated act will hike the rate from the current $8.50 per hour to $9.25 per hour in 2019, to $10 in 2020 and to $11 in 2021.
The shocker, however, was Issue 4, authorizing casino gaming in four Arkansas counties.
Just over 54 percent of voters endorsed the proposal, the latest in a long line of such proposals. Until now, Arkansas voters have rejected them all.
Not this time. The folks who will benefit most are the people who will operate those casinos, if they all actually happen. They invested millions in this campaign and expect a big payoff.
Three of the four are likelyto advance. Those are casinos in Crittenden and Garland counties associated with existing race tracks and a standalone casino in Jefferson County.
The fourth is supposed to be in Pope County, but voters -- a majority of whom, by the way, voted against the casino amendment -- passed a local ordinance to mandate a local election before the county judge or Quorum Court can support a casino there. The amendment requires a letter of support from one of those before the state can consider a gaming license.
That should slow, if not stop, a Pope County casino.
Commentary on 11/14/2018