WASHINGTON — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie officially suspended his campaign for president Wednesday afternoon after a disappointing finish in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday night.

Christie finished far behind his Republican rivals in New Hampshire, a state where he'd invested nearly all of his campaign's time and resources.

See also: Chris Christie lays it all on the line in New Hampshire

He announced the decision on Facebook, a day after indicating he was likely to leave the race.

"Today, I leave the race without an ounce of regret. I’m so proud of the campaign we ran, the people that ran it with me and all those who gave us their support and confidence along the way," he wrote at the end of the post.

I ran for president to say that the government needs to once again work for the people, not the people work for the... Posted by Chris Christie on Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Christie had initially planned to head to South Carolina from New Hampshire, but suddenly changed plans Tuesday night, opting to head home to New Jersey to weigh the future of his campaign.

"We’re going to go home to New Jersey tomorrow, and we’re going to take a deep breath," Christie told in New Hampshire Tuesday night, adding that he and his family "will make a decision on our next step forward based on the results that come in here in New Hampshire."

Christie said Tuesday that he left New Hampshire "without an ounce of regret."

Christie was also not set to qualify for the next Republican debate, set for Saturday in South Carolina, leaving him little opportunity to regain momentum lost after New Hampshire.

The brash New Jersey governor never caught fire in a tangled field where all of the establishment-leaning candidates have struggled. But he had some brief sparks: an emotional speech highlighting the personal costs of drug addiction went viral, an endorsement from the powerful New Hampshire Union-Leader breathed late life into his campaign, and Christie's own election-eve attacks on Marco Rubio's robotic repetition of talking points drew national attention while throwing the Florida senator off his game.

The New Jersey governor had long ago been viewed as a potential power-house in the race, someone who could appeal to blue-collar voters and independents and give Republicans a good shot at the White House.

But the "Bridgegate" scandal, in which top aides shut down a bridge and caused a traffic jam to punish a local mayor for not backing Christie's 2013 reelection, badly hurt him from the start. The scandal scared away the power players and big donors he would have needed to make a splash in the race, and left him poorly funded and out of the spotlight throughout much of his campaign.

Christie was never well-positioned to appeal to the party's hardline conservative base, and following a less-than-stellar showing in a state he had to succeed in he decided to drop out.