Mike Huckabee took to the airwaves and then went to church Sunday morning after a two-state win in Republican presidential races a day before gave him just enough cover to continue a longshot bid for the GOP nomination against John McCain.

The preacher and former Arkansas governor said he feels strongly about his ability to pull out a win in Virginia and Maryland on Tuesday after taking Louisiana and Kansas and refusing to throw in the towel in Washington, though John McCain was declared the winner during the night.

"I think we'll get a nice little bump out of what happened in Kansas," Huckabee said on NBC's "Meet the Press," where he declared his candidacy a year ago.

Speaking later, he added, "If you look at where our votes are coming from, it's clearly from the conservatives. I think that makes sense. I am the most conservative candidate left standing."

Huckabee said even he was surprised by the results in Kansas, where he won all of the state's 36 delegates to the convention, and Louisiana, where no delegates were awarded because no candidate reached the 50 percent threshold.

He also said he is not ready to give up on the Washington state caucuses, where he trailed by less than 2 percentage points, with 87 percent of precincts reporting.

"We're looking at some legal issues. We're not ready to concede that one," Huckabee said, without going into specifics.

Huckabee trails McCain badly in the delegate count, 719 to 234 before the Washington results are included. The eventual nominee needs to secure 1,191 delegates, and only about 1,000 are still in play. He also has only about 27 percent of the vote in recent Virginia polling compared to 55 percent for McCain.

Karl Rove, former senior adviser to President Bush, said while McCain hasn't won over conservatives yet, in the 2000 GOP primary race, Bush didn't get more than two-thirds to three-quarters of the vote until a month after McCain, his principal opponent, stepped out of the race.

"It is impossible for Governor Huckabee to win the nomination," said Rove, a FOX News contributor. "He would have to win 83 percent of the delegates in the contest after Super Tuesday," which Rove said can't be done after a loss in Washington and a beauty contest in Louisiana.

"I am not certain I'd take a lot of solace from yesterday. As we get into these big states with big primaries, I think we'll see a consolidation around McCain," Rove said.

But unlike Mitt Romney, who dropped out of the GOP race on Thursday, Huckabee said he is not ready to hand over the nomination to McCain. He also said he isn't moved by Rove's prognostications.

"Karl Rove has also maxed out personal contributions to John McCain so I'm not saying he doesn't know what he's talking about politically, but he's not infallible either. And the point is, Karl is a supporter of John McCain," Huckabee said while campaigning at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., which was founded by the late Rev. Jerry Falwell.

"The Democrats haven't settled their nominee either, so for us to suddenly act like we have to all step aside and have a coronation instead of an election, that's the antithesis of everything Republicans are supposed to believe," Huckabee told NBC. "We believe competition breeds excellence and the lack of it breeds mediocrity."

A look at exit polling from Louisiana shows that McCain remains very unpopular among Republicans who consider themselves very conservative. Speaking to "FOX News Sunday," President Bush said McCain may have to work harder.

"He is a conservative. Look, he is very strong on national defense. He is tough fiscally. He believes the tax cuts ought to be permanent. He is pro-life. His principles are sound and solid as far as I'm concerned," Bush said.

Huckabee said he, his campaign team and supporters are fired up by the record hits and contributions on his Web site, and he is going to continue to demonstrate differences between him and his opponent, particularly on issues like tax cuts and immigration.

Huckabee acknowledged that he will vote for for the Republican nominee no matter who it is, rejected the notion that he's on any short list to be McCain's running mate and refused to give it consideration at this point.

"I'm not going to be asked. I think it's pretty evident that there would be a whole lot of people on the list long, long before me, and one of them would say 'yes,"' Huckabee said.

Asked about his changing positions on the issues of smoking, the Cuba embargo and tax cuts, Huckabee admitted to changing his tune on a couple items. Specifically, he said the states can deal with smoking laws, but it's wrong to infringe on the right of others to have clean air.

On the Cuba embargo, Huckabee said after visiting with Cuban-American leaders in Florida, he realized that his position in support of exporting rice to Cuba to help the rice market was short-sighted and the embargo has an important effect. On taxes, he said his position holds on implementing a fair tax, which would eliminate the IRS.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.