Sarah Sanders speaks to reporters after voting in Little Rock, Ark. on Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2022. Sanders, the Republican candidate for governor and former White House press secretary, is heavily favored in the race against Democratic candidate Chris Jones. (AP Photo/Andrew DeMillo) Former White House press secretary Sarah Sanders was elected governor of Arkansas on Tuesday, becoming the first woman to lead the state and the highest-ranking Trump administration official in elected office. Sanders defeated Democratic candidate Chris Jones in the governor’s race in her overwhelmingly Republican state, where former President Donald Trump remains popular. Sanders was heavily favored to win the race, which included Libertarian candidate Ricky Dale Harrington. Sanders broke state fundraising records with her campaign, which focused mostly on national issues. Sanders, the daughter of former Gov. Mike Huckabee, has regularly vowed to use the office to fight President Joe Biden and the “radical left.” Sanders succeeds Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson, who is leaving office in January due to term limits. Hutchinson, who endorsed Sanders’ bid, is considering a run for president in 2024 and has often broken with Trump. Trump publicly encouraged Sanders to run for governor when she left the White House in 2019 to return to Arkansas. But Sanders was a household name in the state long before Trump. She appeared in commercials for her father, former governor Mike Huckabee, and worked on his campaigns. He managed Senator John Boozman’s 2010 election and worked as a consultant to Senator Tom Cotton’s in 2014. Sanders briefly left the campaign trail in September after undergoing surgery for thyroid cancer. Her doctor said Sanders was cancer-free after the surgery. During Sanders’ nearly two years in the White House, she scaled back daily televised briefings after repeatedly clashing with reporters who aggressively questioned her. She has faced questions about her credibility, particularly after special counsel Robert Mueller’s report revealed that Sanders admitted to making an unsubstantiated claim to reporters about FBI agents’ response to the firing of director James Comey. But he also earned the respect of journalists who worked behind the scenes to develop media relations. Sanders embraced Trump’s rhetoric during her run for governor and adopted many of his favorite targets, including critical race theory and the national media. But he stopped short of criticizing Hutchinson, even as the former president called Hutchinson a RINO — Republican in Name Only — for vetoing an anti-transgender law. Sanders said she would have signed that measure — the ban on confirming care of minors — into law. He doesn’t agree with Trump that his 2020 presidential loss was stolen, though he said the former president has the right to make that claim. Jones, an ordained Baptist minister and nuclear engineer, had presented himself to voters as a more unifying figure than Sanders. He started his campaign with a video that went viral where he talked about his family’s history in the state.
