The rise of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Trump administration star who just became the new White House press secretary
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House deputy press secretary, has gained prominence in recent months as she's taken on more public-facing duties on President Donald Trump's communications team.
And with White House press secretary Sean Spicer's resignation on Friday, she could be next in line for his job.
Unlike many of the president's top aides, Sanders was bred in politics. She's the daughter of former Arkansas governor and two-time presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, and she served as field director for her father's 2002 gubernatorial reelection campaign, was the national political director for his 2008 presidential campaign, and headed his 2016 presidential bid.
“I always say that when most kids are seven or eight years old out jumping rope, she was sitting at the kitchen table listening to [political commentators] analyze poll results,” Mike Huckabee told Fox News in May.
Her work on several Republican politicians' campaigns landed her on Time's 40 Under 40 list in 2010, alongside other top political minds, including Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin and Nick Ayers, who was selected this week to be Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff. In her Time interview, Sanders called her father her political "inspiration," and praised President Barack Obama for addressing what she said was the most overlooked issue facing the nation: kids who are "victims of broken families."
Following Huckabee's withdrawal from the 2016 Republican primary race in February 2016, Sanders signed on as a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, later becoming a frequent spokesperson. Since January, she's served as the principal deputy press secretary at the White House and, more recently, has shared press briefing responsibilities with Spicer.
Sanders followed in her dad's footsteps from a young age, attending college at his alma mater, Ouachita Baptist University, a private liberal arts school in Arkansas. After college, she worked for the Department of Education under President George W. Bush, worked on Bush's reelection campaign in 2004, and staffed a couple of Senate campaigns before joining her dad's 2008 presidential campaign. She has called the former governor a "hero."
Twitter/Sarah HuckabeeOn the Trump campaign, Sanders was tasked with developing communications targeting faith leaders, gun rights supporters, and military groups. She frequented cable news networks as a surrogate, defending Trump's actions and explaining his policy positions.
Twitter/Sarah HuckabeeSanders is married to a Republican political strategist, Bryan Sanders, whom she hired to work on her father's 2008 campaign. The two married in 2010, co-founded a political consulting firm, Second Street Strategies in Little Rock, Arkansas, and have two daughters and a son all under the age of 5.
Twitter/Bryan SandersSee the rest of the story at Business Insider