Early results show these trends in Arkansas:

Joe Biden will lead the Democratic primary race for president. Michael Bloomberg’s big spending has him currently in third place. Biden, the man Donald Trump fears most, is having a very big night nationally. The Bernie vote surge was non-existent.

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Alas, it appears the Arkansas Republican Party has succeeded in making a partisan contest of the nominally non-partisan race for Arkansas Supreme Court. With GOP money and endorsements, the wife of the state Republican chair, Barbara Webb,  is leading in GOP counties. Judge Chip Welch will carry Pulaski and Washington, but is unlikely to find big votes in the few remaining counties not reflexively Republican. The dark-money and partisan-powered likely win for Webb will be a template for future judge races large and small. This will be a crippling blow to impartial justice and a victory for the corporate lobby.

Note: though about 65 percent of voters in Webb’s home county of Saline cast Republican ballots, she had only 51 per cent of the vote in the early going. The farther she gets from home, the better she seems to do. Welch will win easily in his home county of Pulaski.

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