Gingrich to quit White House race after stormy bid

Newt Gingrich is quitting the US Republican presidential contest after a tumultuous campaign that saw him go from longshot to front-runner and back again.

The final blow for the former House of Representatives speaker came on Tuesday night, when rival Mitt Romney easily won primary victories in five northeastern states that crowned him as the presumptive Republican nominee.

Gingrich had campaigned heavily in Delaware as the conservative alternative to Romney but he lost by nearly 30 percentage points there.

Clobbered by negative ads paid for by allies of Romney, Gingrich's campaign went downhill almost immediately after he won the South Carolina primary on Jan. 21.

He will formally pull out next week, c

Gingrich's idiosyncratic run turned grandiose ideas like establishing a moon colony into front-page fodder and descended into near farce last week when he was bitten in the hand by a penguin during a visit to a zoo in St. Louis.

A bombastic campaigner who shed tears talking about his mother in Iowa, Gingrich enjoyed playing against type on the campaign.

He was strongest in televised presidential debates where he unleashed slashing attacks on Republican rivals, Democratic President Barack Obama and even debate moderators whom he suspected of liberal media bias.

But he won only two states in the primary season and made the decision to quit after receiving an early morning phone call on Wednesday from Romney, said Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond.