Multiple news sources confirming the news, with a 2pm press conference in Gettysburg to follow. The news comes on the heels of word that his chronically ill daughter Bella was hospitalized again over the weekend. Santorum has already called Mitt Romney to concede.
In my view, it’s the right time for Santorum to drop out. His family needs him now, the delegate math precluded him from doing anything but dragging the race to a fractious convention, and with Romney preparing a huge ad buy as Santorum fell in the Pennsylvania polls, withdrawing now avoids a potentially embarrassing home state loss on April 24.
CNN has live feed of the press conference.
POSTMORTEM: There were missteps along the way worth learning from, but at the end of the day, each of the four finalists in this race – Romney, Santorum, Gingrich and Paul – met or exceeded any reasonable expectation for what they could have accomplished in this primary, given where they all started in the spring of 2011. Santorum in particular began the campaign – and even entered the last week of 2011 – as a marginal figure discredited by a disastrous 2006 loss, but vaulted himself back into the national conversation as a major leader of the social-conservative wing of the party and won over 3 million votes and 11 states.
