Why Arkansas Is a Test Case for a Post-Trump Republican Party Sarah Huckabee Sanders seems likely to bring the Trump brand to Arkansas politics in a big way. But the state is a testing ground for different possible futures for the party. A business in downtown Clinton, Ark., in October 2019. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has positioned herself as a Trump loyalist as she runs for governor in a state the former president carried by 27 points last year. Credit...Audra Melton for The New York Times LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — For decades, Arkansas punched above its weight in politics and business. In the 1990s, it was home to the president and the world’s wealthiest family. In the 2000s, three onetime Arkansans ran for president. A decade later, the state claimed its sixth company on the Fortune 500 list.