What’s Going On in Arkansas – Is Governor Sarah Sanders Still MAGA?
Guest post by Martel Maxim
It all seems very connected and concerning. An extremely strange turn of events has many Arkansas MAGA loyalists and election experts puzzled. Unfortunately many of the current policies and actions of the once great Press Secretary of President Trump and daughter of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee appear to have gone off the rails, and we need to ask WHY. According to many, she’s been behaving more like an enemy of MAGA, while simultaneously appearing to whitewash her actions by pretending to actively associate herself with President Trump and his agenda.
Let’s look at some details:
In direct opposition to MAGA under the direction and leadership of Governor Sanders, MAGA Republicans are being continually targeted and removed from the party via false accusations and rules, eerily similar to what’s happening in South Carolina and other states. In stark contrast to common sense and doing what’s right, an open sore in Arkansas is that Governor Sanders and others are violating their own rules by strongly supporting the Stone County chair, Darren Waddles to remain in power.
Waddles is admittedly close friends with Tai Shen Kuo who was convicted and served time in federal prison for espionage against the United States on behalf of the CCP. Unbelievably, Kuo was paroled into Waddles’ home. Waddles also admittedly inappropriately texted a female student while he was a teacher. He was forced to resign from his teaching job, yet he remains in the party as the Stone County Chair. (See https://arkansasgop.info/darren-waddles to learn more. For more details about Chinese Spy Tai Shen Kuo, watch this segment from 60 Minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkB6Pj14rp8)
Additionally, this link https://arkansasgop.info/ will show you an accounting of how Governor Sarah Sanders appears to be creating false allegations against MAGA grassroots and removing them from the party. From this it’s easy to understand how her actions appear to have ironically orchestrated many other violations of trust that continue to grow daily in the minds of AGA in Arkansas..
As mentioned above, Governor Sanders puts on a public face by associating with President Trump, while simultaneously allowing Arkansas State Board of Election Commissioners (SBEC) to persecute and target those who support paper ballots (as President Trump wants). Yet she rides President Trump’s coattails and posts photos of herself with President Trump to convince many Trump supporters in Arkansas that she’s still closely aligned with the President. Sadly, she does this while simultaneously targeting his MAGA supporters and ignoring his election integrity Executive Orders.
For example, the one county in Arkansas (Searcy County) that used Hand counted Paper Ballots was maliciously targeted by the SBEC, resulting in decertifying their Election Commissioners: https://arkansasadvocate.com/2025/06/12/arkansas-elections-board-decertifies-searcy-county-election-commissioners/
Truth however eventually prevailed, when the commissioners appealed, and the public showed up in mass to protest. The SBEC was then forced to walk back their 14-year ban for the commissioners. The SBEC, led by Governor Sanders’ hand-picked Secretary of State, Cole Jester, has harassed this county endlessly, even as they did a paper ballot election that scored 100 percent on their audit.
In another election related circumstance witnessed by many, Governor Sanders voted against closing the Arkansas primaries. She also voted against one being a Republican to run as a Republican candidate. Additionally, she appears to have whipped the legislative vote to get her puppet, Joe Wood installed as state party chair who then ignored the results of the state convention. What came next is even more unbelievable.
As it turns out, the state convention succeeded in voting to close the primary and instituted other measures such as paper ballots. HOWEVER Governor Sanders, Chairman Wood, and the Republican Party leadership did not recognize the convention as legitimate because they did not get the desired outcome! Again, we need to ask “WHY”?
Oddly enough, the state party rules declare that “The State Convention is the final authority in all party matters.” Despite this, Governor Sanders has continued to act like the State Convention never happened, and continues to ignore the will of the majority of the delegates.
The final election related blow contradicting the MAGA image of Governor Sanders is about to boil over this Wednesday, October 15th, when Col Conrad Reynolds is expected to be indicted for election interference. The charge is that he was too close to voters exiting a polling location while attempting to conduct an exit pole. HERE is an excellent overview of the entire situation.
All this begs the big question; “Is Sarah Sanders being groomed to be the new Nikki Haley for 2028?” We hope not.
The post EXCLUSIVE: What’s Going On in Arkansas – Is Governor Sarah Sanders Still MAGA? first appeared on Joe Hoft.