Gingrich forges ahead as a spoiler

“Between the two of us last night we got two-thirds of the delegates that were available,” Gingrich said. “Romney I think had his front-runner status deeply weakened when he could only get about one-third of the delegates that were available. And I think that there’s a fairly good likelihood that we’re going to end the nominating process in June with no one having an absolute majority, and that will be one of the most interesting 60-day discussions we’ve ever had.”

Gingrich said he believed such an outcome would lead to a wild brokered convention.

“It really could be a very open, very creative convention,” he said.

That is not the way Team Santorum sees it. Tuesday night on CNN, Santorum spokeswoman Alice Stewart said Gingrich should “absolutely” drop out to allow for a two-man race between her candidate and Romney.

Georgia-based conservative talk radio host Erick Erickson joined the dropout chorus Wednesday morning, writing on the RedState blog: “It is time for Newt Gingrich to exit.”

Erickson said Gingrich is not even a spoiler and has the approximate relevance of U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, who has not won a state and has barely a handful of delegates to his name.

“Gingrich’s final act could be king maker by getting out and endorsing," Erickson wrote, "but pride cometh before the fall.”

Erickson went on to compare Gingrich to the Bruce Willis character in "The Sixth Sense" who does not realize he is dead. Gingrich himself makes that reference in his stump speech to describe what pundits thought of him in June when most of his staff quit and his campaign was prematurely eulogized.

On Wednesday, Gingrich continued on to Illinois, where the odds are slim he will pick up any votes in Tuesday's primary.

Speaking to roughly 100 supporters in Rosemont, Ill., outside Chicago, Gingrich made no mention of potentially dropping out of the race. Rather, he spoke energetically about his first orders of business after he is sworn into office in January.

Members of the crowd urged Gingrich on. Supporter Danny Moustos said Gingrich's departure would be a "disservice" to all the remaining primary states.

"To me, it's not a matter of hurting the party," Moustos said of the prospect of a brokered convention. "It's about getting the right person elected."

The question remains whether Gingrich can sell this vision to donors. He took the unusual step of announcing the location of a fundraiser during the Chicago radio show, and campaign spokesman R.C. Hammond has said the focus of the Chicago trip is to raise money.

Rick Tyler, a former Gingrich aide who helps run the Winning Our Future super PAC that supportsi Gingrich, said it will be “more challenging” for the group to raise money with the candidate in a distant third in polls and delegates, and with only victories in South Carolina and Georgia to his name.

Tyler said his pitch to donors is to compare Gingrich to Abraham Lincoln in 1860, arriving at the convention as an underdog and emerging as the Republican nominee after several ballots.

“I can’t predict for you what the next shift will be," Tyler said, "but no one has predicted any of this, so why would he quit now?”

Winning Our Future has been funded almost entirely by Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson -- whose check-writing has generated much fascination and speculation. The PAC mostly airs advertising on Gingrich’s behalf, while the campaign must raise money to pay for his staff and travel.

Larry Sabato, the head of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said Gingrich is likely to get just enough money to carry on.

“There are a lot of people out there who will still give him small bucks,” Sabato said. “He has some hard-core supporters, he really does.”

Romney has a wide lead in delegates but is far from the 1,144 he needs to clinch the nomination. After Tuesday's results -- in which Romney ended up winning the most delegates overall by taking contests in Hawaii and American Samoa -- he has 495 delegates, followed by Santorum with 252, Gingrich with 131 and Paul with 48, according to an Associated Press tally.

Political observers have been split over whether Gingrich’s exit would help or hinder Romney.

“With each week we’re taking delegates off the table,” said Josh Putnam, an assistant professor of political science at Davidson College and author of the primary-obsessed blog Frontloading HQ. “If [Romney’s] not winning a certain amount, he’s not gaining at the pace he needs to.”

But Putnam said Gingrich might just as easily block Romney by stepping aside and letting Santorum consolidate the conservative vote.

A Gingrich departure would not shift all his support to Santorum. A polling analysis by New York Times blogger Nate Silver found that 57 percent of Gingrich's votes would go to Santorum, 27 percent to Romney and 16 percent to Paul.

The notion of a brokered convention terrifies many Republicans who are already concerned about a divisive primary campaign damaging their prospects in the fall. On Wednesday former U.S. Sen. Bob Smith of New Hampshire, a prominent Gingrich surrogate, floated the prospect of a deal among the four candidates before the convention.

“A brokered convention [could] go against the wishes of all the voters and maybe pick someone who wasn't even running,” Smith told The Hill newspaper. “No one I know wants a brokered convention.”

Staff writer Bo Emerson contributed to this article.