Asa Hutchinson, a former congressman and U.S. attorney, has won the Arkansas governor’s race, according to CNN, defeating Democrat Mike Ross (also a former congressman). Arkansas, once a strongly Democratic state, has shifted markedly toward the Republican party in recent years, with the GOP taking over control of both chambers of the state legislature in 2012. Incumbent Democratic governor Mike Beebe was term-limited.

Hutchinson, Slate’s (and formerly NR’s) Betsy Woodruff reports, may have some big ideas up his sleeve, including aggressive tax cuts, for the now solidly red state. The Republican government will also have to deal with the state’s private version of the Obamacare Medicaid expansion, which the federal government agreed to finance. It’s come in under its (expensive) budget projections, but it will attract plenty of scrutiny in the coming years.