GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum suspended his campaign in the race for the party’s presidential nomination Tuesday, making former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney the only GOP candidate likely to receive enough delegates to win the nomination.

Santorum said he made the decision over the weekend and formally made his announcement during a campaign stop in his home state of Pennsylvania.

“We made a decision over the weekend, that while this presidential race for us is over, and we will suspend our campaign today, we are not done fighting,” Santorum said in a live stream of his conference.

Thanking supporters for their hard work, Santorum said he was proud of his campaign for making the voices of the country heard.

Santorum did not mention any future plans to endorse a candidate in the race and did not take questions after the conference. He did not give a formal reason for withdrawing from the campaign.

The announcement came just a day after a brief suspension of Santorum’s campaign over the weekend because of the hospitalization of his youngest daughter. Santorum said his daughter, Bella, is “a fighter and is doing exceptionally well.”

Santorum received the second most delegates in the race so far, behind frontrunner Romney, who has already received more than half of the 1,144 delegates needed to secure the nomination.

The remaining candidates include Romney, Texas Rep. Ron Paul and Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.

In a statement, Romney congratulated his opponent.

“Sen. Santorum is an able and worthy competitor, and I congratulate him on the campaign he ran,” Romney said. “He has proven himself to be an important voice in our party and in the nation. We both recognize that what is most important is putting the failures of the last three years behind us and setting America back on the path to prosperity.”

Winning primaries in 11 states before dropping out, Santorum was the leading receiver of delegates in Louisiana, Missouri, Alaska, Alabama, Kansas, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Ohio, North Dakota, Minnesota, Colorado and Iowa.

Santorum said while his campaign is over, he is not done.

“When I won Iowa I said ‘game on,’ and the White House might now say ‘game over,'” Santorum said. “The game is long from over. We are going to continue to make sure Barack Obama is defeated and we take the U.S. Senate come November.”

Wisconsin State Director for Gingrich’s campaign Robert Lorge said the campaign is looking forward to capturing conservative delegates that had previously been supporting Santorum.

“Newt is the only conservative in the race. We’re looking forward to picking up his delegates to take on the establishment candidate Romney,” Lorge said.

Lorge said it was still Gingrich’s primary to go “all the way to Tampa Bay” and remain in the primary until the end. He also expected certain “carpet bombing” by Romney toward Santorum would now be directed toward Gingrich.

Moving forward, Lorge said Santorum dropping out would not change the campaign’s strategy but would make it clearer.

“We’re looking forward to primaries in North Carolina, New York and Pennsylvania. Conservatives now have the chance to get behind the one conservative candidate still running,” Lorge said.

– The Associated Press contributed to this report.