IOWA CAUCUSES

No win in Iowa, Huckabee ends his White House bid

Kathy A. Bolten
kbolten@dmreg.com

A disappointed Mike Huckabee ended his campaign for president Monday night after finishing in the back of a crowded field of Republican presidential hopefuls.

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee leaves a campaign event at Inspired Grounds coffee on Sunday, Jan. 31, 2016, in West Des Moines.

Huckabee joked with supporters that he was ending the campaign because of illness: “Voters are sick of me,” he quipped.

He told about 200 campaign staff and supporters gathered at a West Des Moines event center that he had called the top three vote-getters — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, businessman Donald Trump and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio — and congratulated them.

“They were very gracious. That’s easy to do when you win,” he laughed.

The former Arkansas governor had hoped for a repeat of 2008, when he surprised pundits by winning the Republican Iowa caucus.

But this time, Huckabee never gained traction in Iowa, consistently polling in the single digits.

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Huckabee spent 75 days in Iowa since May, when he announced his bid for the White House.

But while the candidate held town hall-style question-and-answer sessions in each of Iowa’s 99 counties, it wasn’t enough to gain support among caucusgoers looking for candidates who weren't part of the perceived establishment.

Huckabee often told audiences on the campaign trail that he wasn’t a Washington insider.

“I’ve never lived there,“ he said.

During the final two days of his Iowa campaign, Huckabee swatted down rumors that he would endorse Trump during a Trump rally Wednesday in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Campaign spokesman J. Hogan Gidley said Huckabee has no plans to endorse any candidates. Huckabee was headed to Arkansas late Monday night to drop off family members who had joined him in Iowa.

He was then going to Florida and would not be in Arkansas Wednesday, Gidley said.

The campaign had put most of its resources in Iowa and had little money left to spend. Reports to the Federal Campaign Commission show Huckabee’s campaign with $133,244.38 cash on hand as of Dec. 31.