Sarah Huckabee Sanders announces run for governor of Arkansas in 2022

By Brandon Showalter, Opinion writer and social commentator Monday, January 25, 2021

Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was the first mother to hold the position, is running for governor of Arkansas in 2022.

Huckabee Sanders, 38, who served for nearly two years as President Donald Trump's press secretary, announced her plans to join the gubernatorial race in the southern state Sunday in an online video that begins with a tribute to the armed forces.

She is the daughter of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a conservative Baptist pastor and television personality who served in office from 1996 to 2007. He also ran for the Republican nomination for the U.S. presidency in 2008 and 2016. He is now the host of a weekly, eponymous television program that airs on the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

Huckabee Sanders enters a field of current Arkansas officials vying for the top political job in the state. Those include Republicans Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin and Attorney General Leslie Rutledge. Outgoing Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, is term-limited and cannot run for re-election.

"I've been tested under fire, successfully managing one crisis after another, in one of the most difficult, high-pressure jobs in all of government," the mother of three said in the approximately eight-minute video announcement.

"At the table with President Trump, confronting our most dangerous adversaries like China and North Korea."

In the 2020 presidential election, Trump won 62% of the vote in the Natural State.

"Everything we love about America is at stake. With the radical left now in control of Washington, your governor is your last line of defense," Huckabee Sanders argued.

"As governor, I will defend your right to be free of socialism and tyranny. Your Second Amendment right to keep your family safe and your freedom of speech and religious liberty. Our state needs a leader with the courage to do what's right, not what's politically correct or convenient."

If elected, Sanders will be the first woman to be the governor of Arkansas. The same goes for Rutledge, who became the first woman attorney general of Arkansas in 2015.

Sanders, who often sparred with the media during press briefings, spoke of her faith in the context of opponents coming after her.

"As White House press secretary, I never had to worry about the far-left and their allies at CNN or the New York Times defining me because I have a Creator who has already done that," she asserted.

"I'm a Christian, a wife, a mom, a proud Arkansan. ... As governor, I will defend our freedom and lead with heart."

Thus far, no Democrat has announced their intention to run for governor in the 2022 cycle.