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MIAMI -- In the face of a resounding loss to Mitt Romney in Tuesday's Florida primary, a defiant Newt Gingrich vowed to campaign in each of the 46 states left in the Republican nominating contest and predicted he would become the party's standard-bearer this summer.

Before he spoke to a crowd of supporters at the Rosen Centre Hotel in Orlando, Gingrich tweeted, "46 states to go! Donate today and help us defeat Obamneycare," a term borrowed from former candidate (and now Romney supporter) Tim Pawlenty, who used it earlier in the campaign to highlight the similarities between Romney’s health care plan in Massachusetts and President Obama’s national legislation. The tweet included a link to a donation page on Gingrich's website pleading for a $1 million “moneybomb.”

“It is now clear that this will be a two-person race between the conservative leader, Newt Gingrich, and the Massachusetts moderate,” Gingrich said, the only time he invoked his chief rival throughout his Election Night address. He suggested that Florida’s voters made the narrower race clear, largely because Romney carried about 46 percent of the vote to Gingrich’s 32 percent, while the next highest finisher, Rick Santorum, garnered only 13 percent. Ron Paul notched just 7 percent.

Of course, Santorum made a similar argument when he tendered his own take on the race from Las Vegas -- a detour he took because he knew in advance that he would lose badly.

“Newt Gingrich had his opportunity,” he said, suggesting that Gingrich could have become the conservative alternative to Romney. “It didn’t work. He became the issue,” Santorum went on, adding, “We can’t allow our nominee to be the issue in the general election.”

And so, he said, “Tomorrow we’re going to give a speech on Romneycare and Obamacare," an attempt to make himself the alternative to the right of Romney. 

Romney now has won two of the first four nominating states -- and came within 34 votes of Santorum in Iowa. Gingrich posted a convincing victory in South Carolina 10 days ago, beating Romney by 12 percentage points. After that contest, Gingrich pulled ahead of Romney in a few Florida polls and nationally. But by Thursday, Romney regained the lead in a campaign that’s seen nastiness escalate each day.

But those two facts -- the small number of contests that have been held and the ferocity that has developed -- explain why Gingrich is plowing ahead.