Sarah Huckabee Sanders

Sarah Huckabee Sanders has been married to Bryan Chatfield Sanders since May 25, 2010. They met while working on Mike Huckabee's 2008 presidential campaign, where she was the field director and he was a media consultant. They have three children, Scarlett, George, and William.

Sanders was diagnosed with papillary thyroid cancer in September 2022. She underwent surgery to remove her thyroid and surrounding lymph nodes.

Sanders grew up in a politically active family as the daughter of Mike Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, and Janet Huckabee. She began helping with her father's campaigns as a child and later worked as a field coordinator for his 2002 gubernatorial reelection campaign. At Ouachita Baptist University, she studied political science, minored in mass communications, became student body president, and participated in Republican organizations.

Her early professional roles included regional liaison for congressional affairs at the U.S. Department of Education and field director for George W. Bush's 2004 reelection campaign in Ohio. She later directed Mike Huckabee's 2008 presidential campaign and Huck PAC, managed John Boozman's 2010 Senate campaign, advised Tim Pawlenty's 2012 presidential campaign, and worked on Tom Cotton's successful 2014 Senate campaign.

In 2002, Sanders joined an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit concerning the removal of university students from the voter rolls in Clark County, Arkansas. A federal judge ordered that the students be returned to the rolls. In 2016, she and Bryan Sanders founded Second Street Strategies, a political consulting firm in Little Rock.

After working on Mike Huckabee's 2016 presidential campaign, Sanders joined Donald Trump's campaign as a senior adviser and later handled communications for coalitions including religious and military groups. Following Trump's election, she became principal deputy White House press secretary in January 2017. She held her first White House press briefing in May while Sean Spicer was away on Naval Reserve duty.

After Spicer resigned, Sanders became White House press secretary on July 21, 2017. She was the third woman to hold the position and the first mother to serve as White House press secretary. Her tenure was marked by a combative relationship with journalists, repeated disputes over administration statements, and a decline in the frequency of formal press briefings. The White House recorded stretches of 41, 42, and 94 days without a formal briefing during her tenure.

The Mueller investigation concluded that Sanders had made false statements during press briefings, including her claim that countless FBI employees had expressed support for James Comey's dismissal. She also faced scrutiny over her handling of statements about the Trump Tower meeting, the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and other controversies involving the administration. Trump announced her departure in June 2019, and she left the White House at the end of that month.

After leaving government, Sanders became a Fox News contributor. She published the memoir Speaking for Myself: Faith, Freedom, and the Fight of Our Lives Inside the Trump White House in 2020.

Sanders announced her candidacy for governor of Arkansas on January 25, 2021. Trump endorsed her the following day, and she quickly became the leading Republican candidate. She won the Republican primary in 2022 before facing Democrat Chris Jones and Libertarian Ricky Dale Harrington Jr. in the general election.

Sanders won the November 2022 election and became the first woman elected governor of Arkansas. She was also the first woman to govern a state whose father had previously served as governor. She was sworn in on January 10, 2023.

One of Sanders's first actions as governor was banning the term "Latinx" from official state government documents. She said the decision followed feedback from Hispanic leaders, state lawmakers, and members of her staff. In March 2023, she signed the LEARNS Act, a broad education law that expanded school-choice programs, raised teacher pay, changed rules for school districts and teachers, and prohibited the teaching of critical race theory in Arkansas schools.

Sanders also signed legislation allowing a privately funded anti-abortion monument to be displayed on the Arkansas Capitol grounds. In October 2023, she issued an executive order barring terms including "womxn," "birth-giver," and "chestfeeding" from official state documents. In 2025, she signed legislation authorizing nitrogen hypoxia as an execution method in Arkansas and promoted the Arkansas ACCESS Act, a higher-education reform initiative focused on workforce development and postsecondary access.

During her tenure, Sanders declared states of emergency after severe storms and a tornado, and ahead of the 2024 solar eclipse. Her administration also faced scrutiny over the purchase of a custom lectern for the governor's office. The Arkansas Republican Party reimbursed the office after a public-records request, and a legislative audit examined the transaction. A prosecutor later determined that criminal charges were not warranted.