Trump Receives 83% of County Vote

RISON - Former president Donald Trump received 83 percent of the vote in Cleveland County during Tuesday’s presidential election as nearly 70 percent of the county’s registered voters turned out to vote.According to Cleveland County Clerk Brandy Herring’s office, 3,385 of the 4,853 registered voters in the county participated in the general election, equating to a voter turnout of 69.75 percent. County Judge Jimmy Cummings, who was formerly the county clerk, said the 4,853 registered voters is the largest number of voters he can recall since moving into county government.And like much of the nation, there was a large turnout for early voting inside the county as well. The clerk’s office reported that 1,840 of the 3,385 who voted in the general election did so during the early voting period. That equates to about 54 percent of those who cast ballots in the election.The Republican candidates dominated in every contested race in the county with Trump receiving 2,803 (83.1 percent) of the 3,373 votes cast in the presidential election. Trump has been declared the winner nationally and he carried Arkansas with 64 percent of the vote.It was the highest percentage for Trump to garner in a presidential election in Cleveland County, though he actually had more votes during the 2020 election with 2,857. Trump had 80 percent of the vote in 2020 and 73 percent in 2016.Democratic nominee Kamala Harris received 524 votes (15.5 percent) in this year’s presidential election while Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy received 25 votes to finish third. Kennedy, along with the four other presidential candidates on the ballot, each received less than 1 percent of the vote.In another race on the federal level, incumbent Fourth District Congressman Bruce Westerman of Hot Springs, a Republican, beat his Democratic challenger Risie Howard by margin of 2,786 (85.9 percent) to 456 (14.1 percent) within the county. Westerman...