WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sarah Sanders, who served as one of former U.S. President Donald Trump’s White House press secretaries, on Monday announced she would seek the Republican Party’s nomination for governor of Arkansas in the 2022 election.
Sanders, who left the White House in 2019 under good terms with Trump and backed his failed bid for re-election in November, faces a potential crowded race that could test the former president’s hold on the Republican Party as it regroups.
In a video posted online, Sanders echoed much of Trump’s rhetoric, vowing “law and order,” and positioning herself as a bulwark against “the radical left,” “socialism” and “cancel culture.”
Arkansas’s Lieutenant Governor Tim Griffin has said he will also seek the Republican nomination in the race, which could also include state Attorney General Leslie Rutledge and Arkansas Senate President Jim Hendren, according to local media reports.
Current Governor Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term in the deeply conservative southern U.S. state.
Sanders, 38, served as Trump’s second press secretary after Sean Spicer. She left the job to return home to Arkansas, where her father Mike Huckabee also served as governor from 1996 to 2007.
(Reporting by Susan Heavey and Steve Holland; Editing by Paul Simao)
