Less than a month after being sworn in, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR) will deliver the Republican response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, allowing the party to showcase a young female leader juxtaposed with the first octogenarian president.
At 40, Sanders is half Biden’s age. Republicans weren’t shy about highlighting the difference. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) noted she was the “youngest governor in America,” the “first female governor in Arkansas history,” and the “first father-daughter governance in history.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) added, “I am excited for the nation to hear from Governor Sanders on Tuesday and witness a sharp contrast with this exhausted and failing Administration.”
The daughter of 11-year former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR), Sanders is an interesting choice for another reason: She was the public face of former President Donald Trump’s administration for two years as White House press secretary.
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That gives Sanders substantial television experience heading into her Biden rebuttal. But it is also a reminder of a former president some Republicans and many independents hoped to turn the page on after the midterm elections. Trump has already announced he is running again in 2024.
Nevertheless, many Republicans see Sanders’s time in the Trump White House as a positive and a sign of the party turning toward a new generation of leadership.
“Some might say that the choice signals that Gov. Sanders is a ‘rising star,’” said Robert Coon, a GOP strategist in Arkansas. “I would argue that she has already established herself as a star with Republicans on the national stage both serving as press secretary to the president and most recently by shattering fundraising records in her campaign for governor of Arkansas.”
“I am absolutely thrilled that Sarah has been tapped to give the State of the Union response,” conservative operative Chris Barron said. “Sarah is a shining star in the America First movement. She is young, brilliant, a mother, and an absolute warrior on the issues that the base cares about.”
Some past reactions to events such as the State of the Union have gone poorly, halting the momentum of ascendant political figures. It is difficult to compete on an equal footing with the president addressing a joint session of Congress. Bobby Jindal, then a 37-year-old up-and-comer in his first term as governor of Louisiana, bombed going up against President Barack Obama.
Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) political career survived his response to Obama’s 2013 State of the Union. But it remained most memorable for his awkward break to sip water.
“For many Republicans, the bright lights and intense scrutiny of delivering the State of the Union response has been too much for them,” Barron said. “However, for Sarah, after years battling the White House press corps, this State of the Union response will feel like a walk in the park.”
Like all of Trump’s press secretaries and the ex-president himself, Sanders had an often combative relationship with the White House press corps. But Republican complaints about liberal media bias date back at least to President Richard Nixon’s administration, if not the 1964 Barry Goldwater campaign. Vice President Spiro Agnew dismissed the press as an “effete corps of impudent snobs.”
Sanders rode her reputation for jousting with the Jim Acostas of Washington all the way to the governor’s mansion in Little Rock, winning 63% of the vote in November.
Since taking office, Sanders has pushed back against “wokeness” in state government. One executive order banned the use of the term “Latinx” in state documents. The term is used by just 3% of Hispanics in the United States, according to a 2020 Pew poll.
Resistance to critical race theory and publicly funded political correctness has grown as a priority among GOP voters and conservative activists.
“Unlike many party politicos that might fancy themselves to have a national profile, Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a household name among Republican voters across the country,” Coon said. “Republicans know her as someone with strong conservative convictions and as someone who won’t back down in the face of criticism or pressure.”
The GOP’s appetite for that trait hasn’t waned post-Trump, as evidenced by the appeal of one of Sanders’s fellow state chief executives, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL).
“I think it sends a signal that the Republican Party is focused on serious policies that bring our party back to its roots of conservative politics,” Republican strategist Noelle Nikpour said. “They’ve chosen her because they feel she best represents what the brand of the party is going forward.”
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Sanders said in a statement that Republicans are “ready to begin a new chapter in the story of America — to be written by a new generation of leaders ready to defend our freedom against the radical left and expand access to quality education, jobs, and opportunity for all.”
“By choosing her to give the Republican response to the State of the Union, party leaders are not only showing their confidence in Gov. Sanders’s ability to deliver the Republican vision for the country, they’re empowering a young, emerging executive leader to expand her political brand even further on the nation’s biggest stage,” Coon said.
