LEAD: Rick Perry drops out of US presidential race

By Anne K Walters Jan 19, 2012, 16:53 GMT

Washington - Texas Governor Rick Perry announced Thursday that he would end his campaign seeking the Republican presidential nomination and throw his support behind rival Newt Gingrich.

'As I have contemplated the future of this campaign, I have come to the conclusion that there is no viable path forward for me in this 2012 campaign,' Perry said in Charleston, South Carolina.

The 61-year-old would not take part in a television debate planned for Thursday evening ahead of the next primary Saturday in South Carolina.

The move shrinks the field of Republican candidates, leaving just four major candidates. Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and multi-millionaire businessman, remains the frontrunner, but Perry's exit narrows the field of challengers and increases the chance that conservatives could rally behind an alternative candidate to the moderate Romney.

Romney had faced another blow Thursday when official, certified results from the first of the state-by-state nominating contests showed he had not eked out a win in the Iowa caucuses earlier this month.

Perry said he would support Gingrich, who led Republicans in the House of Representatives in the 1990s. He called Gingrich a 'conservative reformer' with the power to take on the Washington establishment.

'What's broken in America is not our people it's our politics,' said Perry, who will return to Texas, where he has served as governor since 2000.

He vowed to continue fighting for conservative principles of smaller government, less spending and lower taxes, and said the ultimate objective must be for Republicans to defeat President Barack Obama in November 6 general elections.

'We must rise to the challenge and elect a conservative champion to put our country on the right track,' Perry said.

Gingrich, who earlier this week had urged his competitors to leave the race and throw their support to him, welcomed Perry's endorsement and said he had asked the Texan to help him with an initiative aimed at refocussing government power with the 50 states rather than in Washington.

Meanwhile, the certified, official results from January 3 Iowa caucuses showed Romney did not win the first party nominating contest after all,.

Election night results, had showed Romney with just eight votes more than former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, but the final certified results released Thursday gave Santorum the edge with 34 more votes than Romney.

However results from eight precincts remain missing, and with the contest so close, the central state's Republican Party will not declare an official winner.

Santorum, who is known for his socially conservative views on issues such as abortion and gay marriage, picked up a boost from the Iowa result, as did Romney who went on to win the next contest in New Hampshire and emerge as the party's clear frontrunner.

Santorum, Gingrich and Perry had been seeking to become the conservative alternative to Romney, who has been criticized by conservatives for healthcare reform he instituted in Massachusetts and his changing stance on issues such as opposition to abortion.