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Santorum, 53, a former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, vowed Sunday to remain in the race even if he loses all three of Tuesday’s contests.
"We aren’t even in halftime, folks," he said in Mishicot, Wisconsin. "Not even half the delegates have been selected in this race."
Even so, Santorum’s campaign shows signs of retreat. After spending days campaigning across Wisconsin, he plans to appear on election night in his home state of Pennsylvania. Among his challenges will be keeping his campaign alive through April.
"The map looks a lot better for us in May," he said Monday. "We can nominate a conservative out of that convention."
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Romney delegate lead
After Tuesday’s voting, the next contests will be on April 24 in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and Delaware, states expected to favor Romney, and in Pennsylvania, which Santorum represented in both the U.S. House and Senate.
With about half of the Republican nominating contests complete, Romney has 568 of the 1,144 delegates needed to capture the nomination at the party’s convention in August, according to an Associated Press tally. Santorum has 273 delegates and would need to win about three-quarters of those remaining to become the party’s nominee.
In a NBC News/Marist poll released Friday, Romney led Santorum in Wisconsin, 40 percent to 33 percent. The telephone survey of 740 likely Republican primary voters was conducted March 26-27 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.
The Wisconsin primary is not "do or die," Santorum said on NBC’s "Meet the Press" Sunday. "We have to win Pennsylvania."
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Others in the party are pressing for an end to the nomination fight so the nominee can begin focusing on Obama.
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‘Final phase’
"The chances are overwhelming that he will be our nominee," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said of Romney in an interview on CNN’s "State of the Union" Sunday. "We’re in the final phase of wrapping up this nomination."
Romney, 65, has accelerated efforts to win the support of Republican officials across the party. He won the endorsement yesterday of freshman U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.
That endorsement, along with the backing of other anti-tax Tea Party favorites such as Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, demonstrates that Romney is broadening his support beyond the establishment party figures, including former President George H.W. Bush, who have sustained him.
"I just want to reassure every conservative: I’ve spoken to Mitt, I totally believe he is committed to saving America," Johnson told voters yesterday at a pancake breakfast in Milwaukee.
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