Arkansas governor beats challenger in GOP primary

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson defeated a gun range owner who had challenged him from the right in the state’s Republican primary Tuesday, while a state legislator promoted by national Democrats as their best chance to flip a Little Rock-area district was poised to win his party’s nomination without a runoff.

Hutchinson defeated Jan Morgan in the Republican primary for governor, the day after President Donald Trump endorsed Hutchinson’s re-election bid.

The Arkansas Secretary of State’s office hasn’t predicted how many of the state’s 1.7 million registered

voters will cast a ballot in Tuesday’s primary and nonpartisan judicial election. Tuesday marks the first statewide election using a state law requiring voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot. The Arkansas Supreme Court earlier this month ruled the state can enforce the revived voter ID law, despite a judge finding the measure unconstitutional.

The election is the first step in Democrats’ hopes to end their shutout in predominantly GOP Arkansas. Republicans control all of the state’s federal offices and its statewide partisan offices, as well as a majority in both chambers of the Legislature. The GOP has held the 2nd District seat since 2011.

Here are the top races at stake as voters head to the polls: