The Arkansas House District 56 race proved to Arkansans that every vote counts as Democratic candidate Rep. Steve Magie had a four-vote lead over Republican candidate Trent Minner on Election Day.

The Faulkner County Election Commission met Nov. 14 to count additional provisional ballots and determined Rep. Steve Magie will serve his sixth term as a state representative.

Magie said, “The commission meeting was a very thoughtful, very deliberate, very open, transparent process. I’ve never witnessed one of those proceedings, but after watching that, I can assure you that there are no questions about the validity of their determinations.”

After the election commission determined Magie won by a 10-vote margin, Minner requested a recount.

Magie had a total of 4,051 votes, while Minner had a total of 4,041 votes. Libertarian candidate Howard Heffington had 273 votes. 

“It’s been an honor to serve as state representative for Conway and really a privilege to have the support of the community,” Magie said. “Even though it was a really close race, I still won the race and now it’s my responsibility to represent all the citizens in Conway and move forward and do what’s best for them.”

Magie had the lead from early voting with 3,035 votes compared with Minner’s 2,920 votes. However, while votes were coming in on Election Day, Minner and Magie had fluctuating leads. Magie said the margins were so close because both candidates were focused on understanding their constituents. 

“You really have to understand the district and the voters and what … issues that they find are most important and address those issues,” Magie said. “Both campaigns did that. I have to commend Mr. Minner and his campaign. They worked hard, they canvassed, we had their message and we had ours, and the closeness of the race reflects that.” 

Minner’s competitive campaign resulted in no leftover campaign funds for Magie following the election. 

“[Minner] outraised me and had a tremendous amount of support from various groups around the state — particularly on his side of the political spectrum that I didn’t enjoy,” Magie said. “Toward the end of the campaign, we had to put more resources into it, so there are not any carry-over funds this year.” 

Minner outraised both of his candidates. 

After running, Heffington not only learned that campaigning was difficult but also learned that campaign funds are essential to succeeding. 

“I learned that to really launch a proper campaign, it takes a lot of money,” Heffington said. “I don’t think I was really quite aware of that. And just how much data you kind of need to be smart about how you spend the money.”

Heffington said he ran out of time to run the campaign he wanted but doesn’t have any solid plans to run again. Rather, his goal was to bring visibility to the Libertarian Party. 

“I knew that just being a choice on [the ballot] was better than nothing, so that’s why I went ahead and did it,” Heffington said. 

In his new term, Magie hopes to serve on the Public Health, Forestry, Agriculture and Economic Development and Joint Budget committees as he did last term, but the committee assignments were postponed and won’t take place until early December. 

Magie said he plans to work to “reform some of the procedures that the county clerks have to follow to aid them in doing their job better” through legislation recommended by the Faulkner County Clerk Margaret Darter. 

He also plans to revisit his original mission of addressing disparities in health care. 

“Your health should not depend on what your ZIP code is, it should depend on how you take care of yourself and, and access to good quality health care,” Magie said. “Arkansas has big disparities in health care across the state.”

While on the campaign trail, Magie learned that voters know best, and he wants their continued input while in office. 

“State representatives need their people back home, telling them what they need to be thinking about and how they need to be thinking about it … The voters hired us to do this job and now we need the voters to stay engaged and stay up with the issues and keep us apprised of what’s going on at the ground level so that we can make the best decision for them at the Capitol,” Magie said. 

Minner did not respond for an interview.