Candidate bio: Mike Huckabee

Huckabee, 60, an ordained minister, became governor of Arkansas in 1996, after serving as lieutenant governor. He took over the state's top office after the governor was forced to resign due to felony convictions. Huckabee was elected to a full four-year term as governor in 1998 and re-elected in 2002.

A native of Hope, Arkansas, the same town where former President Bill Clinton grew up, he stresses his roots as 'blue-collar, not blue blood.'

He holds a degree from Ouachita Baptist University, in Arkadelphia, Arkansas, and attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Fort Worth, Texas, for a year, before taking a job in Christian broadcasting. He returned to Arkansas in 1979 and served as a pastor before running unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 1992.

He launched a bid for the Republican nomination for president in 2007 and won the Iowa caucuses. But by March 2008 he withdrew from the race. He became a talk show host on the Fox News Channel in September 2008, and in 2012 began hosting a radio show produced by ABC. Huckabee declined to run for president in 2012, but returned to the presidential campaign trail in May 2015.

He and his wife, the former Janet McCain, married in 1974. They have three children, John Mark, David and Sarah, and five grandchildren.