Huckabee ends presidential bid after dismal Iowa result
Eight years after winning caucus, former Arkansas governor failed to garner support in crowded GOP field; O’Malley also throws in towel
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WASHINGTON — Mike Huckabee ended his second campaign for the White House on Monday amid a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses that he won in his first bid eight years ago.
The former Arkansas governor and ardent Israel supporter announced his 2016 bid in May in the hometown he shares with former President Bill Clinton, joining what would become a crowded Republican field that included many political newcomers.
His campaign failed to take off early on, with candidates like billionaire Donald Trump, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio dominating the race.
As caucus results were still streaming in, Huckabee wrote on Twitter that he was “officially suspending my campaign.” He thanked his backers for their loyal support, adding the hashtag #ImWithHuck. Calls to the Huckabee campaign for comment were not immediately returned.
I am officially suspending my campaign. Thank you for all your loyal support. #ImWithHucK
— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) February 2, 2016
In 2008, he captivated evangelical Republicans but couldn’t build wide enough support to win the Republican nomination. After ending his 2008 campaign, he took up hosting a weekend cable show on FOX News, but then stopped before announcing his latest White House bid.
A populist but no Democrat, he did not endorse a minimum-wage increase, instead calling for policies encouraging a “maximum wage” for workers. But he did align himself with labor interests in criticizing “unbalanced trade deals” and describing President Barack Obama’s immigration policy as a way to “import low-wage labor, undercut American workers and drive wages lower than the Dead Sea.”
The ordained minister — he was Arkansas Baptist Convention president before getting into politics — has played up the cultural conservatism learned in this small town where many of his relatives — and a few Clinton relatives — still live. He stood by his opposition to abortion rights and same-sex marriage, declaring that “the Supreme Court is not the supreme being, and they cannot overturn the laws of nature or of nature’s God.”
Huckabee has boasted that in Arkansas politics, he found success in “challenging the deeply entrenched political machine that ran this state. It was tough sledding, but I learned how to govern and how to lead.” An introductory video about the governor who fought “the Clinton machine” made clear he meant Bill and Hillary. Bill Clinton was governor before Huckabee, while former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is now vying for the Democratic nomination for president.
Huckabee, who first visited Israel more than 40 years ago and regularly leads tourist trips to the country, caused an uproar in July 2015 when he accused US President Barack Obama of “marching the Israelis to the doors of the oven” with the Iranian nuclear deal.
https://twitter.com/GovMikeHuckabee/status/625398323629797376/photo/1
The accusation drew wide criticism, including from Israel’s Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer who described the comments as “inappropriate.”
After a similarly unimpressive showing in the Democratic caucuses, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley also ended his Democratic presidential campaign Monday midway through vote-counting, terminating a bid that failed to gain traction against rivals Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.
O’Malley’s decision to drop out of the race came even before a winner had been declared but as early results showed O’Malley garnering negligible support in the first primary contest.
“We fought very, very hard … in order to give the people a choice, and the people have made their choice tonight,” O’Malley told supporters in Des Moines after bowing out Monday.
The former two-term governor and Baltimore mayor campaigned as a can-do chief executive who had pushed through key parts of the Democratic agenda in Maryland, including gun control, support for gay marriage and an increase in the minimum wage.
Times of Israel contributed to this report.
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