“All the factors say go, but my heart says no,” Mr. Huckabee said on his nighttime program on Fox News Channel. “And that’s the decision that I have made.”
As of Saturday afternoon, even some of Mr. Huckabee’s closest aides did not know what he would say. He kept them waiting as long as possible, making the announcement at the very end of his hourlong 8 p.m. program after interviewing guests including the “Extra” host Mario Lopez and the rock musician Ted Nugent — with whom he jammed on Mr. Nugent’s old hit song “Cat Scratch Fever.” (Mr. Huckabee plays the bass guitar).
Even during his statement, Mr. Huckabee hinted that perhaps he would run. “The past few weeks, the external signs and signals and answers to many of the obstacles point strongly toward running,” he said after citing his strength in recent polls and what he said were hints of strong financial support for any run he might make.
But, he said, upon reflection he realized that “under the best of circumstances, being president is a job that takes one to the limit of his or her human capacity. For me to do it apart from an inner confidence that I was undertaking it with God’s full blessing is simply unthinkable.”
Mr. Huckabee had been showing strong poll numbers, among some of the strongest of his party’s possible contenders.
His decision helps bring the fluid field of prospective Republican presidential candidates a step closer to solidifying, eliminating one possible — and most likely potent — contender from the mix, but leaving several other highly anticipated announcements outstanding, starting with those of Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana and former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.
Former Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. of Utah, who recently left his post as President Obama’s ambassador to China, is said to be seriously considering a run and is making moves that seem to indicate he is leaning toward doing so.
John R. Bolton, a former ambassador to the United Nations, said in a brief interview Saturday night that Mr. Huckabee’s announcement made him more likely to enter the race. “Anyone else considering it has to get serious about it,” he said.
(An aide to Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota said Friday that she would be more likely to run, as well, if Mr. Huckabee decided against doing so.)
Had Mr. Huckabee entered the race, he would have been filling a perceptible void in the Republican field by becoming the presumed candidate of evangelicals, whose social issues have been largely swept aside as both parties focus most acutely on the economy and government spending.
Mr. Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister and veteran of religious broadcasting, has carefully maintained ties to his colleagues in the religious sphere.
“He knows our issues backward and forward, and he knows our people backward and forward because he is one of them,” said the Rev. Richard D. Land, the president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Mr. Huckabee’s decision to forgo a run for president presumably leaves that space wide open for Ms. Palin, a self-described “Bible-believing Christian,” should she jump into the race.
Still, Dr. Land said there were candidates already running who could and would address the critical evangelical constituency, among them the former House speaker Newt Gingrich — who has been actively reaching out to Christian groups — and former Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, who has been outspoken against same-sex marriage and about other conservative social causes.
Still, evangelicals have yet to rally to the side of any of the candidates thus far. In that regard, they resemble the party in general. “It’s anyone’s game at this point,” said Matthew Dowd, a former political adviser to President George W. Bush.
Jeff Zeleny contributed reporting.
