Santorum indicates he could leave Florida before Tuesday primary

Rick Santorum could pull out of Florida before its Tuesday primary, exiting a state where he’s failed to gain momentum in order to focus on other upcoming contests.

Santorum told reporters in the state he was unsure he’d be there on primary night, according to reports, sparking speculation the former Pennsylvania senator was pulling up stakes.

{mosads}J. Hogan Gidley, a spokesman for the campaign, said the final decision was unclear, but said Santorum’s campaign is not on the verge of ending.

“All our eggs were never in Florida, we planned to continue on indefinitely,” Gidley said.

Santorum trails Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich by double digits, according to polls of Florida voters. But he is running ahead of Ron Paul, who’s said he plans to skip campaigning in Florida to focus on the upcoming caucus states, where he is likely to do better with voters. Santorum could deploy a similar strategy.

The former senator dropped out of a Wednesday forum sponsored by the Spanish-language network Univision, citing a scheduling conflict. 

“We had a change in schedule a few days ago and asked (Univision) if they could move it and they said they couldn’t,” Santorum said, according to The Huffington Post. “We tried to change our schedule so we could do it, and they said they weren’t willing to change the schedule. It’s unfortunate. We were able and wanted to do it, but they couldn’t. And it’s not their fault, they just said they couldn’t reorganize.”

Santorum is scheduled to participate in Thursday night’s debate in Jacksonville along with the other three remaining Republican presidential candidates.

But then he’s set to head north this weekend for a pair of fundraisers in Virginia, where he owns a home, and he plans to prepare his tax returns for release. He told reporters this would be the first time he’d slept in his own bed since Christmas, according to an NBC report.