Rick Santorum to quit presidential race

Santorum won the Iowa caucuses in 2012, and got the second-most number of delegates only to Mitt Romney, who eventually got the Republican nomination.

After abysmal showings in the Iowa caucuses, four presidential candidates called it quits this week in the aspirations for the White House. Jon Parker, his SC director, said Santorum planned a lengthy tour of SC beginning this week ahead of the February 20 primary that follows New Hampshire.

Later on Wednesday, CNN reported Santorum would join Paul in exiting despite the former senator’s declaration he would continue to campaign in SC.

He is expected to make the announcement Wednesday night.

As Iowans prepare to cast the first votes of the 2016 presidential election, Democrat and Republican candidates have been blanketing the state.

After gathering just 1% of the votes in the Iowa caucuses on Monday, Santorum said initially that he would soldier on.

Before the caucuses, Santorum may have been holding out hope that evangelical voters in Iowa would suddenly decide to reward him for his years of social conservatism.

CNN is reporting Santorum, a former Pennsylvania Senator, is dropping out of the race. Many state Republicans, including some of Paul’s own supporters, have been publicly encouraging him for months to drop to his flagging presidential bid to focus maintaining Republican control of the Senate next year. After finishing the so-called “kids table” debate last Thursday, Santorum and Huckabee both attended a Trump rally in Iowa.

“Started out as 1 of 17 GOP Candidates, now with Rand Paul & Rick Santorum out, 1 or 9 [sic] #StillStanding“, a chipper Gilmore tweeted Wednesday. Ted Cruz, real estate mogul Donald Trump, former pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and Florida Sen.