# Sarah Huckabee Sanders **Sarah Huckabee Sanders** (b. 1982) has been the Republican Governor of Arkansas since January 2023, the first woman to hold the office. She is **running for re-election on November 3, 2026**. The daughter of former Governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, she was [[Donald Trump]]'s White House press secretary from 2017 to 2019, and she has governed Arkansas as a showcase for the movement right. ## The governing record - **Arkansas LEARNS (2023).** A statewide overhaul that phased in universal education savings accounts (vouchers), raised the minimum teacher salary to $50,000, and restricted classroom instruction on race and gender. It is the template the [[School Choice]] movement points to. - **Culture-war executive actions.** Orders on her first day banned "CRT" in schools and "Latinx" in state documents, and she followed with rollbacks of DEI programs and a return-to-office mandate for state workers. - **Taxes.** Repeated cuts to the top income-tax rate. - **Medicaid work requirements.** In 2025 she sought federal approval to reimpose work requirements on Arkansas's Medicaid expansion population. Arkansas was the first state to try this, in 2018, when about 18,000 people lost coverage before a federal court stopped it. See [[Medicaid Work Requirements]]. ## National profile She gave the 2023 Republican response to the State of the Union. She has been close to [[Turning Point USA]] and the evangelical right (see [[Christian Nationalism Ecosystem]]), and she is regularly mentioned for national office. Trump endorsed her for re-election in November 2025. ## The 2026 race Sanders was unopposed in the March 3, 2026 Republican primary. Her Democratic opponent is state Sen. Fredrick Love, who won his primary with 81%. An August 2026 Hendrix College poll had Sanders ahead 45–40, with 7% for the Libertarian candidate. Every major forecaster rates the race Solid or Safe Republican. The Hendrix margin is closer than the ratings suggest, but no forecaster treats the race as competitive. ## Why she matters here Sanders is the clearest case of a Trump White House alum turning a small, deep-red state into a policy lab: vouchers, work requirements and anti-DEI orders, each later offered as a model for other states and for Washington. ## See also - [[Donald Trump]] · [[Turning Point USA]] · [[Turning Point USA Ecosystem]] · [[Christian Nationalism Ecosystem]] - [[Medicaid Work Requirements]] · [[Kevin Stitt]] · [[2026 Governor Races Hub]] · [[US Governors Hub]]