Gingrich Suspends GOP Campaign

It turns out, however, that Gingrich is taking back that statement.

Gingrich announced earlier today that he would suspend his campaign, essentially ending his bid to become the GOP presidential nominee.

Gingrich’s camp now says that he will support Mitt Romney, who[MF1]  declared himself the winner of the GOP primary race last evening in New Hampshire.

“He is trying to determine as a citizen how he will pro-actively help Mitt Romney become president and the Republican party win back the Senate and help (House Speaker) John Boehner keep his majority in the House,” said a source from the Gingrich campaign, according to CNN.

Just three months ago, however, an endorsement by Gingrich for Romney seemed an impossibility.

After Gingrich won the South Carolina primaries, Romney spurred on a string of negative campaign ads in Florida, where 50 republican delegates were up for grabs.  The Romney campaign ended up spending $15.3 million on negative ads and outspent Gingrich 5 to 1 on negative ads alone.

Although Romney was outspending Gingrich in negative campaign ads, Gingrich had a few of his own that attacked Romney.  In one particular ad, called “French Connection,” Gingrich said that Romney was “just like John Kerry” and compared him to other failed presidential hopefuls, such as Michael Dukakis.

Gingrich continued to try and usurp Romney as the pro-tea party choice over the next month, but with the rise of Rick Santorum as a possible alternate candidate for conservatives, Gingrich began to slip in the polls.

In the Ohio primaries held on March 6th, Gingrich received just 14.6 percent of the vote, compared to Santorum and Romney, who each got over 37 percent.  The results also marked a significant change in Ohio voters’ opinions of Gingrich, as Gingrich held 43 percent of the vote in a poll conducted just three months earlier.

Now Gingrich will look to not only back Romney for the presidency, but also try to rally the GOP together in general.

“It is not enough to beat Barack Obama,” said a source, “we also have to help the Republican party keep the majority in the House and win back the majority in the Senate.”

The decision to end his campaign was due to “logistical reasons” according to other sources.