Maybe not, since you didn't live here in 2010, but I can tell you.
First, the opposition to her came from out of state pressure and funds, not local voters. She won the primary, even though there was a very healthy Republican primary going on as well so crossiver voting was lessened. But the person most likely to win that Republican primary was John Booznan, who at that time was the only Republican Arkansas was sending to Washington. And he was my rep since I lived in NWA then.
I vividly remembered letters from him claiming his training in opthamology made him convinced pregnancy, not just life, began at conception.
But all the out of state money and ads DID damage the local liberals opinion of her -- instead of seeing her as someone who was trying to respond to her constituents demands (Arkansas still did some crazy shit with the Medicaid expansion funds, but we weren't ready for the public option as a stats even if I personally wanted it -- the only way Arkansas accepted even the expansion was to let marketplace-approved plans bid to cover the healthy individuals vs actually expand Medicaid, and considering how few primary care physicians here accept adult Medicaid, there were reasons), they saw her as a sellout after all the money and negativity coming from out-of-state people was used to attack her. And the attacks were repeated by Boozman, at least the convenient ones.
All this out-of-state spending by left-leaning groups did something else, too -- it made Republicans rethink whether they could get Arkansas back. We were a red state insofar as who we chose for President most of thr time, but we have significantly liberal areas as well. Republicans starred spending out-of-state money here again, and led to Arkansas electing its first Republican senator since the Reconstruction. Yes, in 1994 they successfully got many congressional districts, but they went back blue... but we'd NEVER elected a Republican Senator.
Redistricting didn't help.
Now, all six congress critters we send are red, including Tom Conman Cotton.
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