He currently is a lobbyist and is a resident of Alexandria, Virginia. He is married to Randi Fredholm Hutchinson, an attorney in Washington, D.C. He was the first Republican to have been elected to the U.S. Senate in Arkansas since 1879.
Early political career
Hutchinson served in the Arkansas House of Representatives representing part of Fort Smith from 1985 to 1992. In 1992, he ran for the Republican nomination in Arkansas's 3rd congressional district after the popular 26-year incumbent John Paul Hammerschmidt announced his retirement. He defeated a fellow Republican state lawmaker Richard L. Barclay of Rogers, for the Republican nomination. He faced Democrat John VanWinkle, an attorney from Fayetteville, in the general election, and won by only 7,500 votes—a margin of five percent. He owed his victory to a 10,000-vote margin in his native Benton County. It was the second-closest margin in the 3rd, one of the most Republican districts in the South, which Hammerschmidt had represented since January 1967. The only closer race was in 1974, when Bill Clinton came within 6,300 votes of ousting Hammerschmidt. Clinton narrowly carried the 3rd in his successful run for President, a presumed factor in the closeness of the 1992 congressional race.
The district reverted to form in 1994, and Hutchinson was reelected with 63 percent of the vote.
Hutchinson ran for the Senate seat being vacated by popular DemocratDavid Pryor in 1996. Initially, the leading Republican candidate was Lieutenant Governor Mike Huckabee. When Democratic Governor Jim Guy Tucker resigned after being convicted of mail fraud, however, Huckabee assumed the governorship and dropped out of the Senate race;[4] Hutchinson entered soon after and captured the Republican nomination. He would face state Attorney General Winston Bryant in the general election. Even though native son Bill Clinton carried the state by a 17-point margin over Bob Dole in the presidential race,[5] Hutchinson defeated Bryant 53%-47% in the Senate election, largely by running up the votes in his congressional district. He became the first Republican Senator from Arkansas since Reconstruction, and the first to be popularly elected.
Hutchinson faced Arkansas Attorney General Mark Pryor, David Pryor's son, in his 2002 re-election campaign. During his term as U.S. Senator, Hutchinson had divorced his wife of almost three decades, Donna, a former Arkansas state representative, and married an aide in 2000. Hutchinson denied any impropriety, and Pryor refused to make the matter an issue in the campaign, but the well-publicized divorce substantially hurt his popularity. Pryor was also helped by the presence of his still popular father in a campaign commercial.[10] Hutchinson lost to Pryor by eight points, making him the only Republican incumbent to be defeated that year.[11]
Hutchinson married his second wife, Randi Fredholm Hutchinson, a former senior member of staff, in 2000.[14] He and his first wife, Donna Hutchinson, divorced in 1999 after 29 years.[14] They have three sons: Jeremy Hutchinson, a former state representative; Timothy Chad Hutchinson, also a former state legislator; and Joshua Luke Hutchinson. On January 8, 2021, a lobbying report shows that Hutchinson paid The Tolman Group $10,000 to lobby for a pardon from Donald Trump for Jeremy, who had been convicted of bribery and tax fraud;[15] however, former President Trump did not pardon him.[16]
Tim and Asa Hutchinson are the brothers-in-law of Arkansas State SenatorKim Hendren, who married their sister, Marylea, in 1958. Hendren was a candidate for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate in the 2010 election. On May 18, he lost the primary to Congressman John Boozman, who would be elected later that year. Kim Hendren's son, Jim Hendren, was elected in 2012 to the District 2 seat from Benton County in the Arkansas State Senate.
