Not that we did not know already, but now it is official: Mike Huckabee announced shortly before 6:30 p.m. PST that he is dropping out of the race. The presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain is expected to hold his victory speech later tonight in Dallas (UPDATE: McCain began his victory speech at 6:48 p.m. PST -- "Stand up and fight for America, the contest begins tonight" MSNBC live on air reports that his teleprompter failed during the speech).

"I'm very proud the way you have insisted the way we conduct our campaign," Huckabee told a crowd of his supporters. "Not only did we fight the good fight and finished the race, but we stayed in until the race was over... We kept the faith. I rather lose the election than lose the reason I got into politics in the first place."

Here in California on the February 5th Super Tuesday, Huckabee received 328,490 or 11.6% of the votes with McCain at 1,197,965. Locally in Los Angeles County, it was 54,470 to 226,328, respectively.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama took Vermont while Hillary Clinton won Rhode Island while it's too close to call for the Ohio and Texas Democratic primaries. Back on February 5th, Clinton took California over Obama with 2,525,123 to 2,093,577. For Los Angeles County, it was 771,700 to 593,003.