LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge was able to separate from a pack of other Republican candidates to take the party’s nomination in the race to be the state’s next lieutenant governor.
Rutledge started the campaign season aiming for the governor’s seat but faced a juggernaut of an opposing campaign when former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders joined that contest.
Pivoting to the lieutenant governor race in October, she quickly rose to the top of the crowded field in most polls, including Arkansas Surgeon General Greg Bledsoe and state Sen. Jason Rapert.
The state’s first woman to serve as AG, Rutledge is now aiming to break that same ceiling in the lieutenant governor’s office and was quick to note the Natural State could see that same thing in both executive offices.
“I can’t wait for it to be Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Lt. Governor Leslie Rutledge. We’ve been friends for a long time, and for both of us to serve Arkansas in this capacity, the first female elected governor and the first female lieutenant governor,” she told reporters Tuesday night. “We’re going to make history in that and we’re going to make history in being the first female governor and female lieutenant governor elected to serve at the same time.”
Rutledge will now face Democrat Kelly Krout of Lowell in the November general election.