Arkansas voters put Democrat Hallie Shoffner out to pasture in Tuesday's Senate race in favor of incumbent Republican Tom Cotton, a Washington Free Beacon Man of the Year who was elected to a third term in the upper chamber. Shoffner, the "prairie populist" who billed herself as a working-class farmer but is worth more than $3 million , trailed Cotton by nearly 10 points when the election was called two hours after the polls closed.
Shoffner's defeat stands in contrast to other Democratic gains this election cycle. Shoffner built her campaign around her identity as a "lifelong" farmer in a state full of them. But the Free Beacon reported that she hired a marketing firm in 2016 to build her "brand" as "FarmHerHallie." While Shoffner did grow up on her family's farm, she spent much of her life as a left-wing activist, including working for the George Soros-funded social justice nonprofit "PROMSEX" in Peru.