Rick Santorum drops out presidential race to open way for Mitt Romney

Trailing Mr Romney in opinion polls and fundraising, the former senator from Pennsylvania told reporters he was suspending his campaign.

That effectively ends his bid to be the Republican who will face President Barack Obama in the November presidential election.

A staunch social conservative, Mr Santorum was an underdog who clawed his way to near the top of the Republican race and won the first nominating contest in Iowa by a whisker. His influence forced the issues of birth control and the role of Christianity in public life to the forefront of the campaign.

Mr Santorum stressed the improbable accomplishment of the past year, saying that “against all odds, we won 11 states, millions of voters, millions of votes”.

He said that while Mr Romney was accumulating more delegates, his campaign was reaching voters too.

“Over and over again we were told: ‘Forget it, you can’t win.’ We were winning, but in a different way, we were touching hearts, we were raising issues that frankly a lot of people didn’t want to have raised,” he said at a news conference at a hotel near the Civil War battlefield site of Gettysburg.

Mr Santorum proved to be a more formidable opponent to Mr Romney than many expected, especially in light of a stinging defeat in his Senate re-election bid in 2006, when he lost his seat by an 18-point margin.

His conservative appeal offered voters a stark contrast with Mr Romney’s more moderate record.

His back-to-basics, hard-working campaign style saw him pass through every one of the Iowa’s 99 counties in the months preceding the vote, and won him the respect and support of many in the state.

He continued to attract strong support in the Midwest and in the South, halting Mr Romney in a swathe of states from Minnesota to Alabama and as far west as Colorado and North Dakota.

But he was lagging Mr Romney in opinion polls and in the fight for the 1,144 party delegates needed to win the nomination. He was facing the possibility of an embarrassing defeat in his home state of Pennsylvania later this month.

A devout Catholic with seven children, Mr Santorum failed to stretch his appeal far enough beyond conservatives and some blue-collar Republicans to be able to overtake Mr Romney.

After conceding the race, Mr Santorum spoke to Mr Romney yesterday evening, but did not announce an endorsement of the front-runner or either of the other two Republican candidates, Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich, both of whom are way behind Mr Romney in polls.

In a statement, Mr Romney said Mr Santorum “has proven himself to be an important voice in our party and in the nation”.

He added: “What is most important is putting the failures of the last three years behind us.”

Hunter College Political Science Professor Jamie Chandler said that it was likely that the Republican Party would now turn its attention to the autumn convention.

“Mr Santorum brought excitement to the race, and helped the GOP mobilize voters earlier in the season,” he said.

“Now much of the electorate will tune out until the fall. His delegates will now likely support Mitt Romney.”