Bolling in October 2012 (Getty Images/Alex Wong)

Virginia Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling won’t, after all, seek out a promotion to the state’s top office this year, he announced today after months of equivocation. Bolling, a Republican, had been mulling an independent bid to succeed outgoing Gov. Bob McDonnell, as Attorney General Ken “The Cooch” Cuccinelli has the GOP’s nomination all but secured.

But in a statement released today, Bolling says that while he believes he could have found a path to victory ahead of The Cooch and likely Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe, the financial hurdles of mounting a statewide campaign were too great without major-party backing. In his statement, Bolling estimates it would cost between $10 million and $15 million to wage a successful race.

“The biggest challenge an Independent candidate faces is fundraising,” he says. “You can have a winning message, but if you don’t have the resources to effectively communicate that message to voters you cannot win.”

There apparently was also some separation anxiety toward the Republican Party. “While I am very concerned about the current direction of the Republican Party, I still have many dear friends in the Republican Party, people who have been incredibly supportive of me over the years,” Bolling says. One of those friends might be House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who last year appeared poised to endorse Bolling in a Republican primary.

A January poll by Quinnipiac University found that even if Bolling had entered the race, he would not have made much impact in an intensely close race. Forty percent of voters queried leaned toward McAuliffe, while 39 percent favored The Cooch. Bolling, who also charted as the most unfamiliar to voters, notched only two percent, smaller than the poll’s margin of error.