Pritchard beats Carver for state Senate in move up from District 89 House seat Pritchard
Posted on Wednesday, November 8, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/46887/
Republican Bill Pritchard, an incumbent state representative for the last six years, won the state Senate District 35 race Tuesday, beating Democratic challenger Lynn Carver.
He is set to succeed State Sen. Jim Holt, who was the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in Tuesday’s election, but lost the race to Democrat Bill Halter.
Pritchard, of Elkins, is a retired business owner and state representative who is vacating the Arkansas House of Representatives District 89 seat due to term limits. He was first elected to that position in 2000. Democrat Jim House defeated Republican Doug Kuntz in a close race to replace Pritchard in the state House.
Carver, of Springdale, is the program director and founder of the Arkansas Support Network and was a first-time candidate for an elected office.
In the Washington County portion of District 35, Pritchard received 10, 897 votes to Carver’s 9, 255. The numbers are unofficial until the election is certified by the Washington County Election Commission a week from Friday.
The district also covers a small area of southern Benton County, but Pritchard led there as well. As of press time, four of seven precincts in the Benton County portion of District 35 had been counted and the vote was 636 to 457 in Pritchard’s favor.
With all the votes counted tallied from both counties, Pritchard led by 1, 821 votes, a lead unlikely to be surpassed even with three precincts uncounted.
Pritchard said he is excited to continue serving in the Arkansas Legislature and glad the people elected him.
“ I’m just ecstatic that the voters have elected me to continue to be their representative in Little Rock, ” he said. “ I’m excited to get down there and start working on the people’s business. ”
Pritchard will be only the second senator the district has ever had. Holt, a conservative Republican, was elected to a four-year term in 2002, as the district seat was created in response to population growth from the 2000 U. S. census. Pritchard also identifies himself as a conservative.
District 35 covers Springdale, the population center of the district, and several rural communities in the northern, western and eastern edges of the county. It stretches into Johnson, Tontitown, Prairie Grove, Lincoln, Goshen and parts of Elkins.