Gingrich to Stay in Race Until Republican Convention

Newt Gingrich announced on Saturday that he has every intention of staying in the race for the White House until August’s Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. Newt announced the following in Port St. Lucie, Florida:

“I will go all the way to the convention, I expect to win the nomination.”

If you haven’t done the math, this means that we still have roughly 211 days of Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and most likely Ron Paul fighting it out.

However, there are only four official debates scheduled between now and the convention: February 22 (Arizona), March 1 (Georgia), March 5 (California), and March 19 (Portland).

I think there will either be more nationally televised debates scheduled, or the campaigns are going to rely on their Super PAC’s for handling the messaging (and attacks) before Super Tuesday, where 10 states hold their primaries on March 6, 2012.

Either way, it’ll be a fun (and expensive!) primary. Of course, a longer primary season means that President Obama gets additional time to raise money without having to spend much, while Republican donors will be forced to decide whether or not they should max out on their candidate now, or wait until things settle down once a more definitive front-runner is determined.

So how many delegates do each of the candidates? Well…

• Mitt Romney has 33 delegates after winning New Hampshire, and placing second in South Carolina and Iowa.
• Newt Gingrich has 28 delegates after winning the South Carolina Primary.
• Ron Paul has 10 delegates after coming in second place in New Hampshire, and 3rd in Iowa.
• Rick Santorum has 8 delegates after placing first in the Iowa primary, and third in South Carolina.

In order to lock up the nomination, a candidate needs 1,144 of 2,286 delegates.

And so it continues.