RACINE, Wis. — Mitt Romney remains his biggest foe, but Rick Santorum is increasingly confronting an even more daunting obstacle: a rising chorus of Republicans calling for the divisive presidential contest to end so the party can turn its full attention to defeating President Barack Obama.

Santorum on Sunday renewed his pledge to stay in the race, emboldened by a sweeping weekend victory in Louisiana, which he said proved that conservative voters “still want to see someone who they can trust.”

The question facing Santorum was not whether he intended to press forward with his candidacy, but whether he should. The delicate subject has been raised by party leaders and rank-and-file Republicans who say their motivation to defeat Obama trumps any differences between Santorum and Romney.

“Pick any other Republican in the country, but he is the worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama,” Santorum told supporters here on Sunday evening, saying Romney’s record on health care was disqualifying. “We need someone who can go out and rally the Republican base.”

“Most people here are really starting to turn their eye to the prize in November,” Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said in an interview on Sunday. “It’s all about electability and winning.”

But Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, said the race remained close here between Romney and Santorum.

Conversations with two dozen Republican voters across Wisconsin over the weekend painted a picture of an electorate that was not entirely sold on Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, but willing to accept him as the nominee. Several supporters of Santorum acknowledged that they were ready for the focus to shift to Obama, but were committed to supporting Santorum as long as he remained in the race.

Kathy Durand voted for Santorum in an absentee ballot, knowing she would be away from her home in Pewaukee on the day of the primary. But, she said, the next day she started studying the race.

“I do believe I would’ve voted for Mitt Romney,” Durand said, explaining a change of heart as the race has developed, though she did not say she regretted her absentee ballot. “I like Rick Santorum’s consistency, his views on life, all of his views, but I think the strongest ticket offer to do the ultimate goal of beating President Obama would be Romney.”

Gingrich soldiering on

Primary by primary, Newt Gingrich’s reasons for remaining in the presidential race keep getting knocked down.

Where once he saw a path to the nomination through the South, he has suffered a string of embarrassing losses there.

More recently, he made a case that by picking up delegates even in states he did not win, he could stop Mitt Romney from clinching the nomination before the convention.

Now that argument, too, is unraveling after Gingrich won so few votes in the two big contests last week, Illinois and Louisiana, that he was shut out of delegates.

But humiliation has not changed his will to stay in the race, and now he has advanced another rationale — he can exert leverage over policy debates, in his party as well as in countering President Barack Obama.

— New York Times News Service