Gingrich vows to press on despite calls to exit GOP race

Newt Gingrich on Monday night rebuffed calls to exit the presidential race, even as a new spate of polls found Rick Santorum — with whom the former House speaker had been jockeying for position as the conservative alternative to Mitt Romney — opening a lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination.

Paired with Santorum's trio of wins in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado last week, along with a fresh call from the National Review, an influential conservative magazine, for Gingrich to clear out of the race, the Georgia Republican faced fresh questions about the viability of his candidacy. But Gingrich told attendees at a Tea Party rally in California that he had been counted out before.

“Santorum had a really good Tuesday, and suddenly the very same people who said I was dead in June came back and said, ‘I told you so,’ ” Gringrich said, according to The New York Times. “Well, I have a message for them. I’m here.”

Gingrich also dismissed the call from the National Review, noting that the magazine had long written in opposition of his candidacy.

“National Review wanted us to drop out in June,” Gingrich said. “It’s silly.”

Reporters also pressed Gingrich on a central argument of the National Review's editorial — that the former speaker had called on Santorum to drop out when his campaign was similarly struggling.

"It is not clear whether Gingrich remains in the race because he still believes he could become president next year or because he wants to avenge his wounded pride: an ambiguity that suggests the problem with him as a leader. When he led Santorum in the polls, he urged the Pennsylvanian to leave the race. On his own arguments the proper course for him now is to endorse Santorum and exit," the editors of the influential conservative magazine wrote Monday.

Gingrich said he had been wrong to do so.

“He decided that wasn’t a good idea, and he was right,” Gingrich said.

The former Speaker also dismissed recent polling as volatile, and predicted a swing back in his favor in coming weeks. A new poll from CBS and the Times was the third this week to show Santorum edging Romney nationally among Republican voters, with triple the support of Gingrich.

“Twice I’ve led in the Gallup polls,” Gingrich told reporters.

Gingrich has vowed to stay in the race until the convention, although he will need to exceed expectations in the pivotal March 6 Super Tuesday primaries to remain viable in the delegate race. Gingrich is also facing a financial deficit relative to his GOP opponents, and will devote much of next week to a fundraising swing.

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