Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Santorum Pulls Out of GOP Race

Run Is Done: Rick Santorum surprised analysts with his strong challenge to Mitt Romney. But in the end, he couldn?t match up with the Republican frontrunner. Image by getty images

Rick Santorum ended his presidential campaign, effectively leaving Mitt Romney as the GOP candidate most likely to face President Obama in November.

“This presidential race is over for me,” he said Tuesday in a speech in Gettysburg, Pa., in his home state. “We will suspend our campaign effective today.”

Santorum, the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, emerged from a crop of conservatives to become the most credible right-wing challenger to Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who until recently had tacked moderate on most issues.

He bested Romney in key southern states, but could not defeat him in the critical Midwest, and faced increasing calls to step down so Romney could take the fight to Obama.

Santorum alienated some national Jewish groups with his calls for Christian leadership and his hard line on abortion and gay rights. He was popular, however, among some in the pro-Israel community, and was the candidate who most explicitly pledged to use force to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb.

In recent days Santorum cancelled several campaign events to be at the hospital bedside of his young daughter, who has a rare genetic disease.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.