Do we like them?

Do we like Sarah Huckabee Sanders?

Our score: 2 out of 10. She signed several laws restricting trans people and has a thin record of real good to set against them.

Sanders is political royalty, the daughter of Mike Huckabee, and she cut her teeth in Trump's White House as press secretary before being elected Arkansas's first female governor in 2022. Politics is the family business, and she has played it loudly and loyally ever since.

The harm check is where this gets difficult. In March 2023 she signed a law letting people sue doctors over gender-affirming care they received as minors, and a bill restricting which school bathrooms trans students can use. Advocates said the care law could effectively bring back a blocked ban, while Sanders's side framed it as protecting kids.

In April 2025 she also signed a law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms. Faith alone is never a fail on this page, and plenty of religious people pass with flying colours. This one is about the state mandating one religion's text in public classrooms, and where you land depends on whether you see it as heritage or as imposition.

The Podiumgate row is the closest thing to a character mark. A $19,000 lectern bought for her office drew a legislative audit plan in 2023, and her office said the state was reimbursed with private funds. A freedom-of-information suit over related records was later tossed out on a service deadline, not on the merits, so it's an open question, not a finding.

Lately she has been busy being a loyal Trump ally: she backed the Iran strikes, brushed off 2028 talk and took a swing at Tucker Carlson, whose commentary she called dangerous misinformation. Criticising a commentator for spreading falsehoods is fair enough, but it doesn't offset the legislation above.

The real good is thin from what we could read. She has pushed an education overhaul that included teacher pay, and she broke a glass ceiling as the state's first woman governor. That's a fair marker, but it doesn't outweigh signing a series of laws that make life harder for trans kids and their doctors.