5 things to know about new US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee

2.  He served as governor of Arkansas for more than a decade, a position now held by his daughter

As explained in The Almanac of American Politics, Huckabee’s political career began with an unsuccessful campaign for the U.S. Senate seat held by Democrat Dale Bumpers in the 1992 election.

Huckabee lost his race against the incumbent senator by 20 points. The 1992 election coincided with then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton’s victory in the concurrent presidential election. After Clinton took office, then-Lt. Gov. Jim Guy Tucker, a Democrat, ascended to the governorship.

Huckabee ran as the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor in a 1993 special election to fill the vacancy caused by Tucker assuming the governorship. He narrowly defeated his Democratic opponent by 2 percentage points. Huckabee won a full term as lieutenant governor in the 1994 election, beating his Democratic opponent by 18 percentage points.

Huckabee assumed the governorship in 1996, following Tucker’s resignation after his conviction for arranging nearly $3 million in fraudulent loans. He won a full term in his own right in the 1998 Arkansas gubernatorial election, defeating his Democratic opponent by 21 percentage points. Huckabee was re-elected to a second full term in 2002 by a narrower margin of 6 percentage points. He could not run for another term due to term limits. Therefore, he left office after the 2006 election. 

Nearly two decades later, Huckabee’s daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, won the 2022 Arkansas gubernatorial election by nearly 27 percentage points. Sanders had served in the first Trump administration as White House press secretary for a brief period.