Ron Paul admitted Wednesday that Mitt Romney was "getting pretty close to" a lock on the Republican nomination, but said he was remaining in the GOP race because his supporters were urging him on.
Fox News host Neil Cavuto asked Paul if it was his "view that Mitt Romney is the inevitable nominee."
"Well, it's getting pretty close to that," Paul said, before noting that delegate counts in many of the states were still fluid and that his campaign had a chance to win the plurality of delegates in some contests.
Paul added that he — and his supporters – were motivated to press on, with half the delegates still up for grabs.
“Well, I think that’s what the people who support me want me to do, because they don’t think we should quit when we are only halfway through the race. And there’s a lot of people working their way through the delegate process, and that takes a while — that might be until June or so," Paul said.
The Texas congressman has scaled back his campaign efforts, focusing appearances on college campuses and generally making fewer stops than in previous months. But Paul said part of his seeming disappearance from the trail was due to reduced media coverage.
"We're fighting the lack of coverage we get. Last night we had 6,200 show up at Chico at the university. I looked for a release on this or an article, so I looked at the Internet, and they said, 'Where's Ron Paul? He's disappeared. He's quiet,' " Paul said.
Asked by Cavuto what he was seeking — outside a prominent role at the convention — Paul responded in trademark style.
"What I want is to live in a free country," he said.
