LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – With 48% of the vote, AP has called for Republican and current Secretary of State John Thurston to win the Arkansas treasurer race.
Tuesday at 9:20 p.m. AP shows 392,958 votes for Thurston against 190,350 for challenger Democrat John Pagan and 24,626 for Libertarian Michael Pakko.
Candidates were running for a two-year term in this special election after the death of former Treasurer Mark Lowery in July 2023. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders appointed Department of Finance and Administration Secretary Larry Walther to replace Lowery.
Thurston was the favorite in the race, in no small part due to name recognition through his terms as secretary of state, where he is now term-limited. He is the former Arkansas commissioner of state lands.
Pagan is a former state senator. A career educator, he was a University of Arkansas Little Rock School of Law professor.
Pakko is the chair of the Libertarian Party and the chief economist at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s Arkansas Economic Development Institute. Unlike Thurston and Pagan, who were put on the ballot through a primary election, Pakko followed the Libertarian standard of being nominated through the state convention.