[Yashcheritsiy]

So who’s costing who delegates? Yes, Newt is votesplitting and throwing states to Romney.

You're assuming that all of Newt's votes would have gone to Santorum otherwise, when actual polling (not the doodle on a napkin "exit polling" that you seem to like) has said that without Gingrich, his supporters would split about evenly between the other two. Which means that in each and every one of those states, without Gingrich, Romney would STILL have won - and in fact would have won by enough to REALLY be mashing Santorum in the delegate count.

[JCBreckenridge]

“You’re assuming that all of Newt’s votes would have gone to Santorum”

That’s how the votesplitting argument works.

“Which means that in each and every one of those states, without Gingrich, Romney would STILL have won”

It also means that Newt has zero value as a kingmaker, if this happens to be the case that his supporters are evenly divided between the two remaining candidates.

So which is it?

[no dems]

Newt didn’t even campaign in those States. Yeah, he got some votes from people who could not stomach Romney or Santorum. Otherwise, they’d have stayed home.

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

Most of Newts voters have already left for, (guess who, the “R” word) because they know that the “R” word has the best chance of beating Obama, which is one of the main reasons they supported Newt in the first place.

Newt's remaining 5%, are dedicated pragmatic Conservatives who don't like Santorum in any way, nor do they like the “R” word and they hope to at least force a brokered convention. So if Newt drops out, they will either go to Paul or split evenly between Santorum and the “R” word.