Sarah Huckabee Sanders

Sarah Huckabee Sanders has served as the 47th Governor of Arkansas since January 2023, the first woman elected governor of Arkansas and the youngest currently-serving governor in the United States at the time of her election. Born August 13, 1982, in Hope, Arkansas — the same town where Bill Clinton was born — she is the daughter of former Arkansas Governor and CUFI board member Mike Huckabee, who appears at Rank 4 on this list. She earned her degree from Ouachita Baptist University and spent her career in communications and political operations before serving as White House Press Secretary under President Trump from 2017 to 2019. Her family background, evangelical Christian faith, and political formation are deeply intertwined with the pro-Israel convictions that John Hagee's generation of evangelical Christian leaders built into Republican culture.

Sanders has continued the Arkansas pro-Israel tradition established by her father's administrations. She has enforced Arkansas's anti-BDS law, directing state procurement and investment offices to comply with requirements that contractors not engage in Israel boycotts, and has maintained active state-level Israel relationships through the Governor's office. Her formal joint statement with Mike Huckabee in April 2026 — a Palm Sunday declaration of support for Israel — demonstrated the intergenerational, faith-rooted character of her commitment. Arkansas was one of the early adopters of anti-BDS legislation, and her administration has continued that enforcement posture.

Her significance on the Iron 100 is partly dynastic and partly structural: as the daughter of Mike Huckabee, she inherits a political lineage in which pro-Israel evangelical Christianity and Republican governance are inseparable. But she has established her own pro-Israel identity as governor on its own terms. At Rank 53, Sanders represents the next generation of Republican evangelical pro-Israel governance: young, female, from the evangelical heartland, and carrying a family tradition of Israel advocacy into the next chapter of American political life.