U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton was reelected Tuesday.
The Republican senator defeated the lone candidate running against him, Ricky Dale Harrington Jr., a Libertarian from Pine Bluff.
With 91% of precincts reporting, the unofficial results were:
Cotton 742,060
Harrington 376,671
After saying he was "humbled" and "honored" to be reelected to the Senate, Cotton promised the small crowd of 180 or so supporters at a watch party at the Embassy Suites in west Little Rock that he would fight for Arkansas families and "never bend the knee to the politically correct mob."
Cotton's speech was heavy on the issues he regularly talks about during campaign stops -- funding the military, supporting law enforcement, protecting statues that honor the country's forefathers and not kowtowing to left-wing ideology.
Incumbent Republican congressmen in Arkansas' 3rd and 4th districts also won reelection on Tuesday night.
In the 3rd District race, U.S. Rep. Steve Womack defeated his Democratic challenger, Celeste Williams, and Libertarian Michael Kalagias.
With 93% of precincts reporting, the unofficial results were:
Womack 208,107
Williams 102,782
Kalagias 12,609
"My life's work has been to serve our community, and it's an honor and privilege to be re-elected to represent the great people of the Third District in Congress," Womack said in a statement emailed to the media.
"This race was a referendum on two visions for our district -- and it's clear that the extreme ideas espoused by the socialist wing of the Democrat party have been resoundingly rejected. Arkansans are united behind the foundational principles that made America great."
In the 4th District, U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman defeated his Democratic challenger, William Hanson, and Libertarian Frank Gilbert.
With 86% of the precincts reporting, the unofficial results were:
Westerman 176,392
Hanson 70,164
Gilbert 7,086
"You never take anything for granted, but we felt like we worked hard and have served the constituents of the 4th District well, and they rewarded that at the polls tonight," said Westerman.
He said it was difficult to campaign in the large congressional district -- which includes all or part of 33 counties -- in this time of covid-19, but he did what he could.
"You can never not campaign in this job," he said.
"My guiding principles are to abide in love," said Westerman. "We want to treat others the way we want to be treated. To compete to win. It's an important job, but even the little things, we want to do those right. And we succeed through service. We measure our success by how well we serve others."
SENATE
Cotton didn't have to worry about beating a Democrat this year. The party effectively conceded defeat nearly a year ago after the withdrawal of its only candidate.
Democrat Josh Mahony of Fayetteville dropped out of the race hours after the filing deadline, but that meant it was too late for the Democrats to pick a replacement.
Mahony blamed an unspecified "family health concern" for his exit.
An independent candidate who entered the Senate race, Dan Whitfield of Bella Vista, also fell short after failing to collect enough signatures to qualify for the ballot.
That left Harrington as the only candidate between Cotton and his second term in the Senate.
It was the first time that Harrington had run for public office. Harrington, a pastor and former prison chaplain, would have been the first Black person to represent Arkansas in the U.S. Senate.
"This is, certainly in modern times, the first time that no [Arkansas] Democrat has been nominated to run for United States Senate," said Republican Party of Arkansas Chairman Doyle Webb.
In fact, it's the first time since ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913, which established direct election of U.S. senators by the voters instead of state legislatures.
Cotton, 43, is a Dardanelle native who earned bachelor's and law degrees from Harvard University.
He's frequently mentioned as a likely 2024 presidential candidate.
A U.S. military veteran who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, Cotton serves on the Senate's Armed Services Committee, where he has advocated for increased defense spending.
He is also a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, where he monitors threats to national security.
On Capitol Hill, while the U.S. Senate was focused on impeachment proceedings, Cotton was sounding the alarm about developments in Wuhan, China.
He called the unfolding health care crisis "the biggest and the most important story in the world," telling a Senate committee in January that "this coronavirus is a catastrophe on the scale of Chernobyl for China."
Cotton was one of the first to urge the White House to halt travel from China.
3RD DISTRICT
Womack, a former Rogers mayor, has been in Congress since 2011. The previous year, he beat seven Republicans in the primary, then defeated Democrat David Whitaker in the general election with 72% of the vote.
Womack replaced John Boozman, who ran for U.S. Senate in 2010 and defeated incumbent Democrat Blanche Lincoln.
The 3rd Congressional District has been a Republican stronghold since 1967, when John Paul Hammerschmidt defeated Democrat Jim Trimble. Hammerschmidt held the 3rd District congressional seat for 26 years.
Womack, 63, of Rogers is a former chairman of the House Budget Committee.
He's a 1979 graduate of Arkansas Tech University who worked as a financial consultant and general manager of a radio station.
Womack retired from the Arkansas Army National Guard in 2009 with the rank of colonel after more than 30 years of service, according to his congressional biography.
Womack was deployed to Sinai, Egypt, in 2002. It marked the first time a National Guard unit performed the mission of the Multinational Force and Observers, according to the biography.
Kalagias is a retired teacher and volunteer firefighter who lives in Rogers.
Kalagias ran against Womack in 2018 and received 2.57% of the vote. Mahony, who dropped out of the Senate race against Cotton, ran against Womack in 2018 and got 32.63% of the vote. Womack received 64.74% to be reelected in 2018.
Williams is a nurse practitioner who lives in Bentonville.
In 2018, Williams ran for state representative in House District 95, which is within Benton County. She lost to Austin McCollum, an incumbent Republican from Bentonville.
4TH DISTRICT
Westerman, the only congressman in the country with a graduate degree in forestry, has represented Arkansas' heavily wooded 4th Congressional District since 2015.
Westerman, 52, of Hot Springs previously served in the Arkansas House of Representatives and on the Fountain Lake School Board.
[RELATED: Full coverage of elections in Arkansas » arkansasonline.com/elections/]
Westerman was the state's first Republican House Majority Leader since Reconstruction after the 2013 GOP takeover of the Arkansas House of Representatives.
An engineer and forester by trade, Westerman worked for 22 years at Mid-South Engineering in Hot Springs, according to his congressional biography.
He earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, where he was a four-year walk-on member of the Razorback football team.
He is also a graduate of Yale University, earning a Master of Forestry degree in 2001.
Hanson is a Camden native who returned to his native state last year after living for more than three decades in the West. He now lives in Hot Springs.
Gilbert, who lives in White Hall, is a former mayor of Tull in Grant County.
Westerman said 87% of Arkansas' 4th District is forested.
Since his arrival on Capitol Hill in 2015, Westerman has worked to pass legislation overhauling federal forest management practices.
Information for this article was contributed by Tony Holt of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.