WASHINGTON — Jon Huntsman will withdraw today from the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
Campaign officials said Huntsman will endorse Mitt Romney at an event in South Carolina this morning. The former Utah governor placed third in last week’s New Hampshire primary despite devoting much of his campaign resources to the state. He had already said expectations for him in South Carolina’s primary this week would be “very low.”
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because Huntsman planned to make the official announcement today.
Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Rick Perry jockeyed Sunday to unite conservatives around their candidacies, but none said he was willing to step aside.
“If we consolidate conservatives, we could beat (Mitt) Romney by a big margin,” Gingrich, a former House speaker from Georgia, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Of Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, he added: “I think the only way that a Massachusetts moderate can get through South Carolina is if the vote is split.”
That is precisely what is happening in South Carolina, with less than a week until Republicans here head to the polls. The four candidates, along with Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, plan to campaign heavily before the first-in-the-South primary, including nationally televised debates tonight on Fox News and Thursday night on CNN.
Two unaligned South Carolina Republicans, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Rep. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said Sunday that if Romney wins Saturday’s primary, making him 3-for-3, the nominating contest effectively will be over.
“If for some reason he is not derailed here and Mitt Romney wins South Carolina — no one has ever won all three (including Iowa and New Hampshire) — I think it should be over . . . and I hope the party would rally around him,” Graham said on “Meet the Press.”
Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, said the only way to stop Romney’s march might be for the race to quickly narrow to two candidates.
“We need to get this eventually down to a conservative alternative to Mitt Romney,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Once this field narrows, when we get it down to a two-person race, we have an excellent opportunity to win this race.”
But, he added, “I’m not going to tell anybody to get in or out of the race. I think that’s their decision to make.”
The Washington Post contributed to this report.
