Newt Gingrich's campaign believes it could force a contested GOP convention. Losing big, Gingrich vows to stay in

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Newt Gingrich suffered two potentially crippling losses in Alabama and Mississippi on Tuesday night in his own backyard.

But after second-place finishes in both states, he vowed to press on anyway.


“We will continue to run a people’s campaign,” Gingrich told a crowd of about 200 here. “I believe after the primaries are over, that the so-called front-runner won’t get [to the nomination] and we’ll be in a whole new conversation.”

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But Gingrich’s challenges are likely to become almost impossibly steep as he failed to clinch wins in two more Southern states, including Alabama, which borders his former home state of Georgia that he represented for over two decades in the House. He is likely to have trouble raising money and making a convincing case that he can be the conservative alternative to Romney when it’s Rick Santorum who is repeatedly emerging in that role.

For much of the primary contest, Gingrich and Santorum — who won both races Tuesday — have been trying to force each other out. But following Tuesday night’s results, the ex-House speaker seemed to suggest that he and Santorum could operate as a team to prevent Romney from advancing.

Gingrich argues that he and Santorum — whom he calls a friend — could potentially use their combined sway if the GOP nomination remains unresolved by this summer’s convention.

“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.

Earlier Tuesday, Gingrich’s camp sought to reassure reporters that the ex-speaker was in the race for the long haul, sending a memo that outlined how it could prevent Romney from amassing the 1,144 delegates necessary to clinch the GOP nod.

By continuing to split the delegates in states that award them proportionally, Gingrich’s campaign believes it could force a contested convention.

“If we get to the end of this process and no one has the numbers, you go to a convention where two-out-of-three delegates want a conservative nominee,” said Randy Evans, a senior campaign adviser. “This may not get settled until July or August heading into Tampa.”

As late as Tuesday afternoon, the campaign was still pushing the math, arguing that Romney won’t have collected half the delegates needed to win the nomination by the Louisiana primary, the half-way point in the race.

If a candidate was on track to hit the magic 1,144 number needed to win the GOP nod, they would need about 572 delegates after Louisiana votes, and no one in the field is going to hit that mark, Evans said.

“[Romney] won’t be anywhere close to halfway there, which is where he would need to be at half-time,” Evans said. “There is the win early, which we think we’ve thwarted. Then there is the win late.”

After Louisiana, the campaign rolls to Washington, D.C., on March 27, where Santorum isn’t on the ballot, and Wisconsin, where Callista Gingrich grew up and still has ties to the state. Evans said the campaign has been working to beef up its ground game in Maryland, which votes the same day, and they’re hopeful for a strong performance there.

Following that is Pennsylvania, where early poll numbers show Santorum holding a lead and Evans said was a “must win” for the former senator in his home state.

If Gingrich survives those states, he’s looking at a return to his more favorable stomping grounds: the South.

North Carolina and West Virginia vote on May 8 and Texas, with a 155-delegate prize, votes on May 29. Gingrich is hopeful that Gov. Rick Perry, who endorsed the former House speaker when he exited the race, will be helpful in propelling the ex-speaker to victory in the Lone Star State. Then Arkansas and Kentucky vote on May 22, another pair of states in which Gingrich thinks his Southern roots will help him.

In his campaign’s view, the biggest hiccup for Gingrich could be New Jersey, a winner-take-all state, where Gov. Chris Christie, an enthusiastic Romney supporter, remains popular with Republican voters.

But that late in the game, Evans said it’s still possible that momentum out of an Arkansas and Kentucky win could give Gingrich an edge in New Jersey. He pointed to Santorum’s Missouri, Colorado and Minnesota wins as a pivot point for that candidate.

“We’re hopeful that this sequence will help us to do the same,” Evans said.

There are several major flaws with this thinking, however. Gingrich hasn’t done especially well in Southern states so far — while he won South Carolina and of his former home base of Georgia, he lost Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi. And Romney points out, with some legitimacy, that many future states award delegates proportionally so it will be harder for candidates to catch up to his delegate lead.

Nonetheless, Gingrich says he’s marching onward.

The campaign is going to Chicago on Wednesday morning, where Gingrich will campaign ahead of next Tuesday’s Illinois primary. Later in the week, he’ll be in Louisiana, where he studied at Tulane in New Orleans. He is planning to spend much of next week in the Pelican State.