Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR) was picked to give the Republican response to the State of the Union address because she offered a generational contrast with President Joe Biden.
But she may have had the same effect on her own party.
Sanders, 40, is half Biden’s age. But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is also 80 — and her old boss former President Donald Trump is 76.
“A new generation of Republican leaders is stepping up, not to be caretakers of the status quo but to be change-makers for the American people,” Sanders said in her rebuttal after arguing it was “time for a change” from Biden and the Democrats.
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Sanders and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), 44, are not only GOP rising stars and part of a new generation of party leadership. They are Trump’s ideological progeny: engaged in the culture war, eager to fight, uninterested in cultivating cozy relationships with the media. Sanders specifically honed these traits as Trump’s White House press secretary for over two years.
“Gov. Sanders very clearly showed that she was prepared for this moment on the national stage,” Robert Coon, a Republican strategist in Arkansas, told the Washington Examiner. “She touched on both specific issues that are affecting Americans every day, as well as making a bigger picture call for a new generation of leadership in the Republican Party.”
“Gov. Sanders demonstrated to America what we know in Arkansas — she is a bold conservative reformer,” Jon Gilmore, a second Republican strategist based in Little Rock, said. “It is exciting to see the new generation coming up and taking the reins of leadership.”
“As the father of two small girls, it made me especially proud to see our first female governor of Arkansas on the national stage,” he added.
“I thought Sarah was absolutely fantastic, a phenomenal contrast to Biden in style and substance,” conservative strategist Chris Barron told the Washington Examiner. “Sarah was right to 100% focus on fighting back on the decadeslong war that the Left has waged on our culture.”
Less directly, Sanders may have also contrasted with Trump, whom she did not mention by name in the speech. Particularly in DeSantis’s case, Trump has resisted handing the baton to the next generation.
“It’s time for a new generation to lead. This is our moment. This is our opportunity,” she said. “A new generation born in the waning decades of the last century, shaped by economic booms and stock market busts, forged by the triumph of the Cold War and the tragedy of 9/11. A generation brimming with passion and new ideas to solve age-old problems. A generation moored to our deepest values and oldest traditions, yet unafraid to challenge the present order and find a better way forward.”
But Sanders then referenced her “2 1/2 years at the White House” and “the president,” meaning Trump.
One difference is DeSantis could be Trump’s rival for the Republican presidential nomination. The former president has already announced his third campaign. Sanders, who Trump hailed as “a warrior,” is just starting out as governor.
“While the governor didn’t mention Trump by name, she certainly didn’t try to disassociate herself from him, even recounting her trip to Iraq to visit the troops,” Coon said. “As a newly elected governor, she’s prioritizing and speaking on issues she believes are important to her both at the state and national levels.”
“I wasn’t surprised that Sarah didn’t mention Trump or DeSantis or any other 2024 potential contender — this was about Sarah offering a different vision from Biden,” Barron said.
While Sanders is the daughter of 11-year former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR), her rise to the governorship as a first-time candidate was heavily driven by Trump.
“I took on the media, the radical Left, and their cancel culture, and I won,” Sanders said of her role as press secretary during her gubernatorial campaign. “As governor, I will be your voice and never let them silence you.” She thanked Trump for his endorsement and “for always believing in me.”
One veteran Republican operative in Washington, D.C., noted that all this history made it unnecessary to more overtly mention Trump.
“Whatever you think of Trump, at some point, someone else will take the reins,” the operative said. “Whether that is after a second term or some other point.”
Democrats, who largely replaced their House leadership team to effect generational change, panned Sanders’s attention to so-called culture war issues.
“So, the way that we see it is, like, the choice is between political fighting over fake conspiracies and delivering for the American people,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters aboard Air Force One on Wednesday.
“What is not normal is some politicians’ obsession over some of our most vulnerable kids or taking away women’s right to make their own healthcare decisions or even teaching America’s history,” she added, referring to Sanders’s assertion that Democrats were waging a woke war on normal people in which Biden was either complicit or too weak to resist.
The original culture war speech, delivered by Pat Buchanan at the 1992 Republican National Convention, was cheered by conservatives immediately after it was delivered and produced a bounce for then-President George H.W. Bush in some polls. It was subsequently blamed for setting the tone when the convention was not ultimately viewed as a success.
At the same time, Sanders won 63% of the vote in Arkansas in November. DeSantis did almost as well, 59.4%, running against a former governor in what traditionally has been a battleground state. Many Republicans say this proves these issues can win, though some party insiders the Washington Examiner spoke to did express concern about the independents who didn’t vote GOP in the midterm elections.
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Sanders’s story about Trump also struck what might be described as an inclusive nationalist tone, describing what happened when he and former first lady Melania Trump entered a roomful of soldiers. “Men and women from every race, religion, and region, every political party, every demographic you can imagine started chanting in perfect unison over and over and over again, ‘USA, USA, USA,’” she said.
“Gov. Sanders is her own person and stands on her own feet,” Gilmore said. “Her speech rightly focused on her leadership ideas, and that’s what the American people wanted to hear.”
