Former White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her father, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee
As the results came in on election night, so did the congratulatory tweets from former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
Huckabee, 67, was quick to toast Ron DeSantis, Marco Rubio and Vern Buchanan for their victories in Florida. Then he congratulated “strong Republican governors” Greg Abbott, Mike DeWine, Ron DeSantis (again) and Henry McMaster. Then he congratulated Alabama Senate candidate Katie Britt.
There’s one race, though — called in favor of the Republican candidate before he began tweeting — that hasn’t yet gotten a mention. It’s the Arkansas gubernatorial race, in which his daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was elected early in the night to follow in his footsteps, as well as become the state’s first female governor.
“Results are coming in for Florida,” Huckabee wrote on Twitter at 8:46 p.m. ET, shortly after his daughter won her respective election. “Congratulations to @RonDeSantisFL @marcorubio Vern Buchanan and the many other Republican winners across the state.”
“Congratulations to Huck PAC endorsed @KatieBrittforAL! Alabama elected strong, pro-Life Republicans today!” he wrote at 10:04 p.m. ET.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Sarah Huckabee Sanders
The tweet gained some attention from Huckabee’s followers, who reminded the politician that his daughter took home a win of her own. Some wrote “And your daughter,” while others kindly notified Huckabee that Sanders is now set to be the state’s new governor, but regardless of how the point came across, it’s likely he’s learned the news by now.
The Republican and former White House press secretary, 40, beat out Democrat Chris Jones and Libertarian Ricky Dale Harrington Jr. in the race for Arkansas, and the Associated Press called the race for Sanders on Tuesday evening before her father launched out his tweet. The elder Huckabee served as the state’s 44th governor from 1996 to 2007.
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The only other time a father-daughter duo took the reigns of a U.S. state was when John J. Gilligan served as the 62nd governor of Ohio from 1971 to 1975, and his daughter Kathleen Sebelius became the 44th governor of Kansas from 2003 to 2009.
“The reason we started this journey nearly two years ago is because I absolutely love Arkansas, I love everything about it,” Sanders said at a victory speech. “I got the opportunity over the last two eyars to fall in love with Arkansas over and over and over again, and it has been tremendous.”
Sanders launched her gubernatorial campaign last January after a stint as former President Donald Trump‘s press secretary from 2017 to 2019, and broke a state fundraising record with $4.8 million in the first quarter of the race.
In June 2020, Trump, 76, tweeted that Sanders “is a very special person with extraordinary talents, who has done an incredible job! I hope she decides to run for Governor of Arkansas — she would be fantastic.”
The politician, who also worked for Fox News as an on-air contributor in 2019, announced her campaign by touching on “law and order,” specifically the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S Capitol. “We’ve seen violence in our streets, at a congressional baseball practice and at our Capitol,” Sanders said in her announcement video, not naming Trump, who was impeached for a second time after. “This is not who we are as Americans. To remain free, we must have law and order.”
Another talking point for Sanders was “cancel culture,” which she said would “only further divide and destroy us.”
“Everything we love about America is at stake, and with the radical left now in control of Washington, your governor is your last line of defense,” Sanders said. “In fact, your governor must be on the front line. So today, I announced my candidacy for governor of Arkansas, and ask for your prayers and support.”
Sanders secured the Republican nomination for Arkansas governor back in May, when she beat out former talk radio host Doc Washburn. At the time, she told reporters: “If [the Biden administration] continues to fail the way that they have and they continue to, I think, put states in a difficult position, then absolutely, we’re going to call them out and we’re going to continue to talk about that.”
