The surprise, if there was one with the close of the state's political filing period last week, was that so many people actually want to hold office in this time of divided politics.
A total of 446 federal, state and district candidates filed by the March 1 deadline, according to the numbers reported by the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
That included 218 Republicans, 94 Democrats, 48 Libertarians, seven independents, seven write-ins and 72 candidates for nonpartisan judicial offices.
Those numbers would balloon if they included filings from local jurisdictions, but these 446 souls are the candidates for congressional offices, statewide office, the Legislature and the state judiciary.
The number reportedly is the highest of any election year without a presidential race since at least 1980. That's impressive, although it is due in part to the fact that every seat in the 135-member Arkansas Legislature is open this year.
That happens once a decade, after the Census forces a redrawing of district boundaries for both chambers of the Legislature.
The state Board of Apportionment's plan for redistricting, which set up the districts from which these candidates are running, has been challenged in federal court.
U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky recently dismissed the lawsuit, but attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union are appealing his decision.
The ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of the Arkansas State Committee NAACP and the Arkansas Public Policy Panel, who claim the reapportionment map improperly dilutes minority voting power.
Judge Rudofsky's controversial decision maintained that only the U.S. attorney general has authority to bring a lawsuit under the Voting Rights Act. The judge gave the Justice Department five days to intervene but the Justice Department declined to respond to the tight deadline.
The legal fight continues, as it should. Nevertheless, for now, the new maps stand. And Arkansas is looking at a particularly busy primary election as a result of the filings that concluded last week.
Notably, almost half of the 446 candidates who put their names on the 2022 ballot are Republicans, which suggests the reddening of Arkansas continues in full swing.
Significantly, there will actually be more Republican primary races than general election contests for the state Legislature.
For generations in Arkansas, the Democratic primary was where most such decisions were made, but the reverse is true now.
Of the state legislative contests revealed by last week's filings, there will be 51 Republican primaries, including 26 contests challenging sitting Republicans. Only 48 of the seats have drawn candidates from both major parties.
The Libertarian Party has fielded a record 48 candidates for office this year, including for governor, other statewide offices and the Legislature.
The party's chairman notes that the Libertarian candidates give voters a choice in some races where there would otherwise be no general election opponent to the Republicans who have filed.
The absence of Democratic candidates for many of the offices is itself continuing evidence of the hold that Republicans have in Arkansas politics now.
Whatever ideological shift might occur within the Legislature as a result of this years' elections may come within the Republicans who actually win those party primaries.
Remember, Republicans currently hold both of the state's U.S. Senate seats, all four congressional seats and all of the state constitutional offices plus Republican majorities in the House and Senate.
One of those Senates seats, all of the congressional seats and state offices are up for election this year along with all those legislative seats.
The federal offices are not term-limited and incumbents are seeking re-election for each of those posts. The federal incumbents each face either primary or general election challenges, or both.
Most, if not all, of the federal offices are likely to stay in Republican hands, although they could go to different Republicans.
That's true, too, of the state's constitutional offices, although there will definitely be some new faces in several of the constitutional offices.
Term limits will end the service of the current governor and several other statehouse officials.
In some cases, the expected "new" faces in those offices may result from office shifts, where candidates term-limited in offices they now hold are running for different statehouse offices this year.
The result, still, will likely be a continuing Republican grip on Arkansas' major federal and state offices as well as on the Legislature.