LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — So much for the anti-establishment Republicans.

Candidates who had big-name backers or plenty of money in the bank had a tough night Tuesday in the Arkansas primary. A state lawmaker supported by Democratic Party leaders finished second in an east Arkansas congressional primary to a candidate who struggled in fundraising. A candidate for a south Arkansas congressional seat managed to beat expectations and head into a runoff without a paid campaign staff or website.

And a Supreme Court candidate backed by leading Republicans and Democrats got trounced by an underfunded rival.

It's the type of atmosphere that would make a candidate with a laundry list of Washington-based endorsements and an overwhelming cash advantage worry. Instead, Republican congressional hopeful Tom Cotton survived an election that was brutal for most candidates favored by party insiders.

A political newcomer, Cotton won the GOP nomination outright in the race for the state's only Democrat-held U.S. House seat. He defeated Beth Anne Rankin, a former Miss Arkansas and longtime aide to former Gov. Mike Huckabee, who had made an issue of his out-of-state support in the final days of the primary campaign.

"We worked hard from the very beginning," Cotton told The Associated Press. "We put together a very strong grassroots team. We campaigned aggressively and sought every vote."

He didn't do it alone. Cotton locked down support early from leading state and national Republican figures. Leading conservative organizations such as the Club for Growth, Citizens United and the Tea Party Express heralded the 35-year-old from Dardanelle as their best hope for winning a seat that had eluded them in past elections.

That support was needed in a district where Rankin — who lost to two years ago to Democratic Congressman Mike Ross — could tout that she was a Republican in south Arkansas before being a Republican there was cool. Ross is retiring when his term ends.

"She's like the incumbent, and it's his job to work against that," said former Congressman Jay Dickey, the last Republican to represent the district and a Cotton supporter. "He had a big hill to climb with name recognition."

It was an easy hill to climb once the money started coming in. Cotton raised more than $1 million for his bid, enough to air four different television spots throughout the sprawling, 33-county district on a constant basis. In return for the investment, he gets a head start on campaigning for a seat the Republicans say they're poised to claim this fall.

The victory was even more overwhelming compared to how voters rejected, or at least strongly resisted, similarly sophisticated campaign operations in other races. State Sen. Gene Jeffress managed to lead in the Democratic primary for the 4th District, despite having no paid campaign staff and no website. He headed toward a June 12 runoff with Hot Springs attorney Q. Byrum Hurst, who far outpaced Jeffress in fundraising and had been targeted by national Republicans as the likely nominee for the seat.

In east Arkansas, prosecutor Scott Ellington came close to winning the Democratic nomination for the 1st Congressional District outright, but ended up in a runoff with state Rep. Clark Hall.

Ellington, who brokered the plea agreement that freed three West Memphis men who'd been convicted of killing three Cub Scouts in 1993, had struggled in fundraising for the seat. His strong finish was an embarrassment for Hall, who had secured the backing of leading Democrats such as Attorney General Dustin McDaniel and the Blue Dog Coalition. Hall was the only one of the three Democrats airing television ads in the district, and had loaned his campaign more than $80,000.

The woes of the big-name candidates even struck non-partisan races. State Appeals Court Judge Raymond Abramson lost his bid for a spot on the Arkansas Supreme Court, despite having the backing of Democratic legislators and a former Republican congressman who recorded phone calls for his bid. Abramson lost to fellow Appeals Court Judge Jo Hart, who badly trailed him in fundraising.

Republicans touted the runoffs in both congressional races as another sign of trouble for Democrats, who are trying to rebound from the GOP's gains in the 2010 election.

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"Democrats have seen their ability to win federal elections in Arkansas continuously erode in recent years, and 2012 is shaping up to be the year the state becomes solid red," the National Republican Congressional Committee said in a memo issued late Tuesday night.

But Jeffress, even as he prepared for a three-week fight for his party's nomination, focused on the fundraising gap between Cotton and Democrats as an issue in the fall campaign.

"My folks got a lot bigger bang for their buck than Tom Cotton's did," Jeffress said.

Andrew DeMillo has covered Arkansas government and politics since 2005. He can be reached at www.twitter.com/ademillo

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