The Hedgehog Beat The Fox, Cotton Campaign Says

The campaign between Republican Tom Cotton and Democrat Mark Pryor for the United States Senate was a political parable that proved a key idea, a consultant for the Cotton campaign said Friday.

“We ran a hedgehog campaign,” Brad Todd, a consultant with On Message, Inc., said, comparing the race to the story of the Hedgehog and the Fox. “The fox knows about a lot of things while the hedgehog is familiar with one thing. And the hedgehog won.”

In unofficial numbers, Cotton, who won election to the U.S. House in 2012 defeated Pryor, a two-term senator, Tuesday by a 57-39% percent margin.

Todd, campaign spokesman David Ray and pollster Wes Anderson spoke about the campaign in a conference call that was followed by reporters and political pundits around the country.

Ray said the campaign was a “situation of process over substance,” describing the Pryor campaign.

“They were obsessed with the campaign and political money. But we were focused on taxpayers’ money,” Ray said. “People were focused on healthcare and taxes. We argued our merits on Facebook and they argued the money.”

Ray said Cotton had 245,000 followers on Facebook, while Pryor had about 19,000 followers.

Cotton, who takes office in January, won 62 of the state’s 75 counties including several counties that were once considered Democratic strongholds.

The numbers were especially true in Northeast Arkansas. Cotton won 62 percent of the vote in Greene, 60 percent in Craighead, 58 percent each in Poinsett and Randolph counties, 57 percent in Cross, 56 percent in Clay and 51 percent in Jackson County.

By contrast, Pryor won in Pulaski, Mississippi, Crittenden and Jefferson counties by healthy margins, areas where Democrats did well across the board.

However, the areas that surround those counties were won by Cotton.

Anderson said early polling by the Cotton campaign showed good favorability numbers for Pryor, but bad numbers for the election.

“The race was the same throughout. In July 2013 (just before Cotton announced his bid for the Senate), we did a poll that showed Pryor with a 41/37 favorable/unfavorable rating. It showed a 49-36 job approval rating. But on the ballot, he was trailing 45-42,” Anderson said. “And it remained the same throughout.”

Anderson also said Cotton “is a disciplined individual and ran a disciplined campaign” against Pryor.

Both Anderson and Todd said their candidate benefited from the support of conservative Democrats and building a strong ground game.

“They (Democrats) talked incessantly about how important their ground game was, but we never saw it,” Anderson said.