Sarah Huckabee Sanders facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Sarah Huckabee Sanders
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Sanders in 2023
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| 47th Governor of Arkansas | |
| Assumed office January 10, 2023 |
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| Lieutenant | Leslie Rutledge |
| Preceded by | Asa Hutchinson |
| 31st White House Press Secretary | |
| In office July 26, 2017 – July 1, 2019 |
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| President | Donald Trump |
| Deputy | Raj Shah Hogan Gidley |
| Preceded by | Sean Spicer |
| Succeeded by | Stephanie Grisham |
| White House Deputy Press Secretary | |
| In office January 20, 2017 – July 26, 2017 |
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| President | Donald Trump |
| Press Secretary | Sean Spicer |
| Preceded by | Eric Schultz |
| Succeeded by | Raj Shah |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Sarah Elizabeth Huckabee
August 13, 1982 Hope, Arkansas, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse |
Bryan Sanders
(m. 2010) |
| Children | 3 |
| Parents |
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| Residence | Governor's Mansion |
| Education | Ouachita Baptist University (BA) |
Sarah Elizabeth Huckabee Sanders (born August 13, 1982) is an American politician serving since 2023 as the 47th governor of Arkansas. Sanders is the daughter of Mike Huckabee, who served from 1996 to 2007 as Arkansas's 44th governor. A member of the Republican Party, she was the 31st White House press secretary, serving under President Donald Trump from 2017 to 2019. Sanders was the third woman to be White House press secretary. She also served as a senior advisor on Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. Sanders became the Republican nominee in the 2022 Arkansas gubernatorial election and won, defeating Democratic nominee Chris Jones.
As press secretary, Sanders was the spokesperson for the Trump administration's policy decisions, and had a confrontational relationship with the White House press corps. When interviewed by investigators as part of the Mueller probe, she admitted making false statements in her role. Sanders hosted fewer press conferences than any of the 13 previous White House press secretaries.
In June 2019, Trump tweeted that Sanders would be leaving her role as press secretary. On January 25, 2021, she announced her candidacy for governor of Arkansas; Trump endorsed her. She secured the Republican nomination in May 2022; her general election opponents were the Democratic nominee, Chris Jones, and the Libertarian nominee, Ricky Dale Harrington. She is the first woman to hold the office, the first woman to be governor of a state of which her father was also governor, and the youngest current governor.
Sanders has been recognized in Fortune and Time magazine's "40 under 40". She is the author of The New York Times bestseller Speaking for Myself, is a former Fox News Channel contributor, and served on the Fulbright board.
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Early life and education
Sarah Elizabeth Huckabee was born on August 13, 1982, in Hope, Arkansas. She is the youngest child and only daughter of Mike Huckabee and Janet Huckabee (née McCain). She has two brothers, John Mark Huckabee and David Huckabee. After graduating from Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, Huckabee attended Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas. She was elected student body president of the university and was active in Republican organizations. In 2004, she graduated from the university with a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in political science and minoring in mass communications.
Early political career
Sanders had no experience in governing for most of her career, instead serving as a political consultant and a campaign insider. She was involved in her father's first campaign for the United States Senate in 1992. Describing the unsuccessful bid in an interview for The Hill, she said: "He didn't really have much of a staff, so our family has been very engaged and very supportive of my dad. I was stuffing envelopes, I was knocking on doors, I was putting up yard signs." Her father said of her childhood, "I always say that when most kids are seven or eight years old out jumping rope, she was sitting at the kitchen table listening to political commentators analyze poll results." Huckabee said that he and his wife spoiled Sarah at times. He called her "doggone tough" and "fearless" due to having grown up with two brothers.
Sanders was a field coordinator for her father's 2002 reelection campaign for governor of Arkansas. She was a regional liaison for congressional affairs at the U.S. Department of Education under President George W. Bush, and worked as a field coordinator for Bush's reelection campaign in Ohio in 2004.
Sanders is a founding partner of Second Street Strategies in Little Rock, a general consulting services provider for Republican campaigns. She worked on national political campaigns and campaigns for federal office in Arkansas. Sanders was also vice president of Tsamoutales Strategies. She was national political director for her father's 2008 presidential campaign. She was also a senior adviser to Tim Pawlenty in his 2012 presidential run. Sanders was involved in the campaigns of both U.S. senators from Arkansas, managing John Boozman's 2010 campaign and serving as a senior adviser to Tom Cotton's 2014 campaign. After her father's 2008 campaign, she worked as executive director of Huck PAC, a political action committee. Sanders was also the national campaign manager for the ONE Campaign, a global nonprofit founded by Bono aimed at ending global poverty and preventable diseases. In 2016, after managing her father's presidential campaign, she signed on as a senior adviser for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and ran its communications for coalitions.
Trump administration
After Trump was elected, Sanders was named to the position of deputy White House press secretary in his new administration. On May 5, 2017, she held her first White House press briefing, standing in for Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who was serving on Naval Reserve duty. She continued to cover for Spicer until his return to the podium on May 12.
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On July 21, 2017, after Spicer announced that he was going to resign, newly appointed White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci announced that Sanders would take the role of White House press secretary. Sanders is the third woman to hold the role of White House Press Secretary after Dee Dee Myers in 1993 and Dana Perino in 2007. Sanders is the first mother, and first working mother, to ever hold the position.
On June 13, 2019, Trump tweeted that Sanders would leave her role as press secretary on June 30. Under Sanders, the White House set at least three records for the most days between formal press briefings. The White House had a 41-day streak that ended in January 2019, then a 42-day streak that ended in March 2019, followed by 94 days and counting without a formal press briefing when Sanders's departure was announced.
Mueller report findings
On April 18, 2019, the first volume of the Mueller report, the Special Counsel Investigation report compiled by Robert Mueller, revealed that Sanders admitted that she had lied during a press conference when she said various things about James Comey, the former FBI director. This included lying about the firing of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's connection to Comey's firing, and her claim that "countless" FBI agents had lost faith in him. She repeatedly told the press that "countless members" of the FBI had contacted her to complain about Comey, but admitted to investigators that her claims were "a slip of the tongue" and "not founded on anything". When a redacted version of the special counsel's report was publicly revealed, Sanders defended herself, saying that her comments about the FBI agents were made in "the heat of the moment" and unscripted.
Sanders also lied about Trump's being in charge of a statement regarding the Trump Tower meeting. He worked on said statement with his advisor Hope Hicks, and when the emails about that statement were made public, it was reported that he had helped with it himself. According to the report, Sanders also made false statements about when Trump decided to fire Comey, as well as lying about Sessions's and Rosenstein's involvement in Comey's firing. The New York Times said that the revelation of false statements showed a "culture of dishonesty" at the White House. Of Sanders defending her comments on FBI agents, The New York Times wrote: "It has been a hallmark of the Trump White House never to admit a mistake, never to apologize and never to cede a point. This case was no different."
Sanders's rhetoric about the report was found to be misleading or false. In March 2019, after Attorney General William Barr released a summary of Mueller's report on Russian interference in the 2016 election, Sanders falsely claimed that the investigation's findings were "a total and complete exoneration". The summary of the report stated it "does not exonerate him". Sanders repeated her suggestion that the report exonerated Trump in May 2019, and falsely claimed that Mueller had "closed the case". The Associated Press noted, "Mueller did not fully exonerate Trump or declare that a possible case against Trump to be 'closed.' Mueller announced his work was finished specifically leaving it open for Congress to decide on possible charges of wrongdoing."
Governor of Arkansas
2022 gubernatorial election
On January 25, 2021, Sanders announced her candidacy for governor of Arkansas, an office her father, Mike Huckabee, held from 1996 to 2007. A day later, Trump endorsed Sanders, calling her "a warrior". On July 16, 2021, Sanders broke the Arkansas gubernatorial fundraising record by raising over $9 million. Running during the COVID-19 pandemic, she pledged not to implement any mask mandates or vaccine mandates. .....
In October 2021, the Arkansas Law Notes published an article that called into question whether Sanders was even eligible to run for governor. The article centers on whether Sanders meets the State Constitution's residency requirement of seven years.
Sanders handily won the Republican primary and defeated Democratic nominee Chris Jones in the general election.
On November 9, 2022, it was announced that Sanders had won the race and would become Arkansas's first female governor, and the first woman to be governor of a state her father was governor of.
Tenure
Sanders was sworn in on January 10, 2023. On her first day in office, Sanders banned the term Latinx from being officially used in the state government. The decision came after hearing feedback from Hispanic leaders in the state, state lawmakers and senior members of staff.
On March 31, 2023, Sanders declared a state of emergency in Arkansas after the state was hit by a tornado. This activated the National Guard, which began assisting with the recovery effort. Sanders also announced that she had spoken to President Joe Biden, who promised Arkansas federal aid to assist with the recovery.
In June 2023, Sanders's office purchased a custom-made lectern for $19,029.25. The Arkansas Republican Party later reimbursed the governor's office for the lectern several days after a Freedom of Information Act request for the purchasing documents was filed. An executive assistant was instructed to add the note "to be reimbursed" to the original invoice and to leave the note undated. After substantial media coverage of the purchase, the Arkansas State Legislature began an audit. Sanders denied any impropriety and said she welcomed the audit.
The audit showed that the lectern was purchased from Beckett Events LLC, a Virginia-based company run by political consultant and lobbyist Virginia Beckett, with the lectern costing $11,575. Beckett charged $2,500 for a "consulting fee" and $2,200 for the road case. The remainder of the cost represented shipping, delivery, and a credit-card processing fee. Similar lectern models are listed online for $7,500 or less, while the purchased lectern had no microphone or electronic components aside from a light. Sanders said it had additional features that contributed to its cost, including a custom height. The audit also found that a staff member had contacted an Arkansas-based equipment dealer and received a quote for portable podiums ranging in cost from $800 to $1,500.
After Sanders proposed to deny public access to certain gubernatorial records, she faced public pushback. She later signed a law limiting public access to information about her security detail and her travels.
In October 2023, Sanders signed an executive order to eliminate the usage of "woke, anti-woman words" from official state documents. Banned terms include "womxn", "birth-giver", and "chestfeeding". The order was criticized by the ACLU.
On April 5, 2024, Sanders declared a five-day state of emergency in Arkansas ahead of the solar eclipse of April 8, releasing $100,000 from the state Response and Recovery Fund to assist with the state's response to the eclipse while waiving certain federal restrictions on commercial traffic for up to 14 days. Money from the disaster fund was to be used at the discretion of A.J. Gary, director of the Department of Public Safety's Division of Emergency Management, "to defray both program and administrative costs".
Personal life
Huckabee met Bryan Sanders during her father's 2008 presidential campaign. She was the campaign's field director, and Sanders was hired as a media consultant. The couple married in 2010. They have three children.
Sanders was diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer in September 2022. She had surgery to remove her thyroid and the surrounding lymph nodes.
Electoral history
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | Sarah Huckabee Sanders | 289,249 | 83.14% | |
| Republican | Francis "Doc" Washburn | 58,638 | 16.86% | |
| Total votes | 347,887 | 100.0% | ||
| 2022 Arkansas gubernatorial election | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
| Republican | Sarah Huckabee Sanders | 571,105 | 62.96% | -2.37% | |
| Democratic | Chris Jones | 319,242 | 35.20% | +3.43% | |
| Libertarian | Ricky Dale Harrington Jr. | 16,690 | 1.84% | -1.06% | |
| Total votes | 907,037 | 100.0% | N/A | ||
| Turnout | 907,037 | 50.81% | |||
| Registered electors | 1,799,136 | ||||
| Republican hold | |||||
See also
In Spanish: Sarah Huckabee Sanders para niños In Spanish: Sarah Huckabee Sanders para niños
