David Jackson, USA TODAY

and Kathy Bolten, The Des Moines Register

DES MOINES — Mike Huckabee withdrew from the Republican presidential race after a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses, an event he won just eight years ago.

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 a harder time gaining traction in the Hawkeye State this time around. While Huckabee 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 part of the “Washington elite.”

2016 dropouts: Presidential candidates who called it quits

“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.

Huckabee had trouble raising money and securing air time during the various debates. He eventually faced relegation to preliminary debates with other low-rated candidates.

During the campaign, Huckabee touted a sales-based "fair tax," as well as his experience battling "the Clinton machine" in Arkansas.

Huckabee also expressed frustration with the rise of political "outsiders" with little or no experience in government.

"Of all the election cycles I’ve been involved in, this has been one of the most bewildering," Huckabee said in January in Urbandale, Iowa. "Because it’s almost as if the more experience, the more preparation one has had for this job, it’s almost like it’s a detriment than it is an asset."