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California Rep. Duncan Hunter endorsed Mike Huckabee on Wednesday, four days after dropping his own presidential bid.

“I got to know Governor Huckabee well on the campaign trail,” said Hunter. “Of the remaining candidates I feel that he is strongly committed to strengthening national defense, constructing the border fence and meeting the challenge of China’s emergence as a military superpower that is taking large portions of America’s industrial base,” he said in a statement.

Huckabee said that the other quality compelling his endorsement is that Huckabee “is a man of outstanding character and integrity. I saw that character over the last year of campaigning and was greatly impressed. The other Republican candidates have many strengths and I wish them all well. My personal choice is Mike Huckabee.”

Aides to Huckabee said Hunter and the former Arkansas governor grew close and bonded when both were also-ran candidates. But then Huckabee went on his boom.

Asked for a response to the endorsement, press secretary Alice Stewart said Huckabee “is extremely excited.”

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IOWA CAUCUSES, Jan. 3

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Republican presidential candidate Duncan Hunter dropped out of the race for the White House Saturday.

Hunter, a California congressman, Vietnam veteran and evangelical Christian, tried to appeal largely on his anti-illegal immigration platform but never gained traction in the primary race.

He did best in Wyoming, where he won 8 percent of the vote, finishing third behind Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson.

In the Iowa caucuses, Hunter came in a distant seventh place with less than 1 percent, only beating Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, who already had dropped out of the race. He also finished with less than 1 percent in the New Hampshire and Michigan primaries and got 2 percent in South Carolina. He didn’t get on the board in the Nevada caucuses.

“We thought we’d do much better in Nevada, but the numbers weren’t there,” said campaign spokesman Bob Bevill. “We were not able to get any traction.”

In recent weeks Hunter, a California congressman, was forced at every stop to dispel rumors that the campaign was already dead and was unable to talk about the issues, Bevill said.

“The media has a ‘vote someone off the island’ mentality and Duncan Hunter was a casualty of that,” said Bevill.

Hunter was elected to Congress in 1980 as part of President Reagan’s sweep into power. He appealed to some conservatives by focusing on military issues, competition from China and border security. During his statement on his plans to depart the campaign, Hunter said he had achieved success by getting the other candidates to speak about his concerns.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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By Ernie Paicopolos

John McCain moved into the top spot in the New Hampshire Republican primary and is now leading previous front-runner Mitt Romney by a 7-point margin, 34 percent to 27 percent. A new FOX News poll shows that McCain picked up 14 percentage points since the last FOX News poll in mid-December, while Romney suffered a 6-point decline.

Essentially, McCain turned a 13-point deficit into a 7-point advantage in about three weeks’ time. Rudy Giuliani slipped from third to fourth place, with Iowa victor Mike Huckabee edging out the former New York City mayor for third position. Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter and Fred Thompson all registered in the mid-to-low single digits.

Opinion Dynamics Corp. conducted the telephone poll of 500 likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire for FOX News from January 4 to January 6. The poll has a 4 point error margin.

The poll also found that supporters of Huckabee (73 percent), McCain (72 percent) and Romney (72 percent) are about equally certain of their vote—with backers of Giuliani the least sure of their commitment (66 percent).

Romney voters (66 percent) and Giuliani voters (66 percent) are equally likely to think their candidate can win the November 2008 general election, while Huckabee supporters (54 percent) and McCain supporters (53 percent) are somewhat less confident of their candidate winning it all.

McCain voters (29 percent) registered the highest degree of enthusiasm for the prospect of their candidate actually winning the White House, followed by supporters of Romney (20 percent), Huckabee (12 percent) and Giuliani (11 percent).

The poll also shows likely Republican primary voters still think the economy is the single most important issue in the election (20 percent); but that top spot is now shared with the war in Iraq (20 percent). Immigration, at 16 percent, comes in third on the important issues list, followed by homeland security (13 percent), social issues like abortion and gay marriage (7 percent), health care (7), taxes (7 percent) and education (2 percent).

As we saw in the mid-December Fox poll, “standing up for one’s beliefs” (48 percent) continues to be the most important candidate quality among likely Republican primary voters. About half as many voters choose “experience” as the key quality (23 percent), while “being a true conservative” (15 percent) and the ability to get elected (9 percent) lag far behind.

Almost 6 in 10 likely Republican voters (59 percent) approve of the job George W. Bush is doing as president, while 39 percent disapprove.

When asked to name the person who would actually become the next president — regardless of who they planned to vote for — Romney continued to top the list among Republican primary voters (20 percent today; 19 percent in mid-December). McCain occupies second spot on this “inevitability” list (17 percent), followed by Democratic candidate Barack Obama (11 percent). In mid-December, Hillary Clinton was second on this list (17 percent) among Republican voters, but fell into a tie for fourth in this poll (6 percent).

Likely Republican primary voters in New Hampshire are equally divided on abortion—as just as many say they are pro-choice (40 percent) as say they are pro-life (40 percent). “Pro-life” voters give Romney a 6-point lead over McCain (29 percent to 23 percent), while “pro-choice” voters go for McCain over Romney by a hefty 20-point margin (44 percent to 24 percent).

Also, fully two-thirds of likely Republican primary voters (66 percent) think elected officials should not be influenced by their religious beliefs when making policy. This more secular view of politics among New Hampshire Republican primary voters may explain the third-place showing by Huckabee—who polled well among Iowa voters identifying themselves as Evangelical Christians.

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NEW YORK — ABC News is eliminating Republican presidential candidate Duncan Hunter and Democrats Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel from its prime-time presidential debates Saturday night because they did not meet benchmarks for their support.

The Republican debate three days before the New Hampshire primary will include Iowa caucus winner Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. It starts at 7 p.m. EDT.

Shortly after that 90-minute forum, Democrats Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards and Bill Richardson will take the stage at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H.

ABC anchor Charles Gibson will moderate both debates.

The network set up benchmarks to narrow the field. Candidates had to meet at least one of three criteria: place first through fourth in Iowa, poll 5 percent or higher in one of the last four major New Hampshire surveys, or poll 5 percent or higher in one of the last four major national surveys.

ABC said the rules were quite inclusive, and that none of the candidates objected ahead of time. Its decision was made easier by Democrats Joe Biden and Chris Dodd dropping out of the race Thursday night.

“In previous debates where the stage was more crowded you had to make sure all of the candidates got equal time,” said David Chalian, ABC News political director. “Here you will have more time to go in depth on the issues.”

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While Congressmen Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter rank below the other Republican presidential candidates in national polls, they nonetheless hit on key issues for particular blocs and occasionally force the top tier to take notice.

The super-early, front-loaded primary calendar, combined with a mildly enthusiastic Republican base, has enabled these two boutique candidates to energize the field, said Mark Wrighton, politics professor at Millikin University in Illinois.

“We’re really sort of in uncharted territory here and we’re seeing some interesting things occur,” Wrighton said.

One of the unexpected, big moves in the race so far has been the catapult of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, from what was generally considered a darkhorse, second-tier position to frontrunner status in Iowa; he has become the most talked about Republican candidate in the field.

Paul has surprised everyone by attracting what many are saying is the largest grassroots movement since independent Ross Perot in 1992. The limited government, anti-war libertarian raised more than $19 million in the fourth quarter of 2007 and he has a legion of avid volunteers knocking door to door and blogging all over the country on his behalf.

While his chances for winning the nomination appear slim, Paul earned 9 percent of the vote in a Des Moines Register survey of likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers released Tuesday. An average of national polling puts him at 4.3 percent.

Meanwhile, Hunter may not have the the broad appeal of the current GOP frontrunners, but is certainly generating — and riding — the wave of Republican energy on issues like illegal immigration and border security.

Hunter, a California congressman, has forged his campaign on Republican anger at what he perceives is federal immobility on curbing illegal immigration, incentives that attract undocumented workers and their families here and so-called “sanctuary cities” that do not penalize or pursue illegal immigrants within their jurisdictions.

Hunter, who was chairman of the Armed Services Committee before Democrats took over the majority in the House of Representatives in 2007, is known primarily for successfully pushing through legislation for erecting a security fence along the U.S.-Mexican border. He’s been tough on the outsourcing of American business to foreigners and has been steadfast in this support of the war policy in Iraq.

But his star has been dimmed by the brighter, though in some ways, less purely conservative lights of the so-called “top tier.”

“I’ve known Duncan Hunter since 1980,” said John Gizzi, political editor of Human Events. “He’s one of the most decent people I know. He places ethics above everything else. He’s honorable to a fault.”

But with Hunter polling around 1 percent, Gizzi said the candidate might be looking toward other things.

“If there is a Republican president, (Hunter) would make an outstanding secretary of defense.”

Paul has not been so overshadowed. The 10-term congressman from Texas who was the Libertarian Party’s presidential candidate in 1988, has never enjoyed so much national notoriety and support as he does now, mostly because he is the only Republican candidate who has articulated opposition to the war, independence from the GOP machine and a strict constructionist view of the Constitution.

“He’s surprising a lot of people with the buzz he’s getting,” said Sean Evans, a professor of politics at Union University in Tennessee. “There’s a strong libertarian streak in the Republican Party and he’s speaking to that. He’s speaking to a certain demographic that no one has been able to.”

During the GOP debates Paul, 72, offered push-back against the other candidates, particularly on Iraq. Rudy Giuliani, the frontrunner in national polls, was able to make headlines off Paul when he scolded him for suggesting that it was U.S. policy that led to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. But Paul didn’t back down and therein lies his appeal, said conservative political consultant Chuck Muth, also head of Citizen Outreach.

“He’s never worried about the Republican establishment, that’s for sure,” he said. “He means what he says. I think his personality has attracted so many people who may hadn’t heard of Ron Paul before this presidential campaign.”