Despite delegate math, Santorum and Gingrich remain steadfast

Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum acknowledged Monday that they are unlikely to gain the delegates required to be the nominee through the remaining primaries, but said the race to be crowned the GOP presidential nominee would go to the party convention in August.

Gingrich agreed with Wolf Blitzer’s assertion that it was “impossible” for him to rack up the 1,144 delegates necessary to be the party nominee, but said rival Mitt Romney, while the leader, is “the weakest front-runner in modern times.”

“If he can get to 1,144, he’s the nominee. But if he can’t get to 1,144 on the 26th of June, the last primary, then it is going to be a wide-open electronic convention for 60 days of talking among the American people,” Gingrich said on CNN’s “The Situation Room.”

He said, despite calls even from some of his supporters to drop out to allow the party to unify behind Romney, he had no plans to exit the race.

“There is no obligation to concede it to him,” Gingrich said. “If he can win it, more power to him. If he doesn’t win it, then June, July and August become very interesting months.”

Rick Santorum, speaking on the same program, said that while he disagrees with the delegate math that suggests that he has no path to the nomination, the “likelihood” is that no candidate will accumulate enough delegates by the time the voting contests conclude.

“This race is going to -- is in all likelihood going to go to the convention,” he said.

Original source: Despite delegate math, Santorum and Gingrich remain steadfast