Newt explains why
he won't quit:
“Between Santorum and myself, we’ll get over two-thirds of the delegates and the so-called front-runner will get less than a third,” Gingrich said Tuesday night.
Newt's smoking something highly illegal if he thinks he and Rick Santorum can get two-thirds of the remaining delegates, and even if they could, Romney would still probably end up with more than either of them.
Take last night for example: it provided a golden opportunity to test out Newt's theory because the two biggest prizes, representing three-quarters of available delegates, were Mississippi and Alabama. Santorum and Gingrich combined to win half the delegates last night and Mitt Romney got a little more than one-third, well short of Newt's prediction. In Mississippi and Alabama alone, Gingrich and Santorum didn't get two-thirds of available delegates.
We'll never know what would have happened if Gingrich hadn't run, but it's quite possible that Rick Santorum would have ended up with 50 percent of the popular vote in that state. If that had happened, Santorum would have won nearly all the delegates in Alabama (allocations for each congressional district and statewide vote become winner-take-all in Alabama if a candidate receives a majority) and a clear majority of delegates in Mississippi. So instead of splitting a little less than two-thirds of the delegates with Newt Gingrich, Santorum would have probably taken close to three-quarters of all delegates.
To borrow Mitt Romney's words, with those kinds of numbers, it would take an act of God for Newt Gingrich's presence in the race to hurt Romney's chances. It's possible he'll fade into irrelevance, but you don't run for president as a team, and the mostly likely scenario is that as long as he stays in the race, Gingrich will continue to split the not-Romney votes.
I don't really care what he does, though. As long as Romney can't put away Rick Santorum, the long slog will continue, shortening the window in which Romney will be able to transform into a general election candidate. And who knows, Romney might end up needing to do a deal with Newt Gingrich to reach 1,144 delegates. Wouldn't that be fun to watch?