28. "Paul says he'll cease campaigning in coming primaries"

"Moving forward, however, we will no longer spend resources campaigning in primaries in states that have not yet voted. Doing so with any hope of success would take many tens of millions of dollars we simply do not have,"

Gingrich did the same thing a few weeks before he pulled out of the race. This could be a sign of a similar pattern.  At this point, there are not enough delegates left unassigned for Paul to win. From early on there was very little chance of him winning but he stayed in largely simply to be there. If this follow the path of Gingrich, in a few weeks Paul will announce his dropping out of the race.

Romney is now a mere 178 delegates from 1144 delegates. There is no way for him to lose at this point. Both Santorum and Gingrich have backed out, and Paul might soon follow. However, even if none of them had back out Romney would still win.

If Romney had five delegates he would have exactly twice as many delegates as the other three combined.

Source:
http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/14/11701792-paul-says-hell-cease-campaigning-in-coming-primaries?lite

27. "Santorum endorses Romney for president"

Recently Rick Santorum dropped out of the Republican Presidential race.

On May 8th, Santorum officially endorsed Mitt Romney.

"'Above all else, we both agree that President (Barack) Obama must be defeated. The task will not be easy. It will require all hands on deck if our nominee is to be victorious,' Santorum said.

"'Governor Romney will be that nominee and he has my endorsement and support to win this the most critical election of our lifetime,' he said in the statement, which was emailed to supporters." 

 While Santorum does mention traits of Romney that he agrees with, Santorum seems to have a focus on more of defeating Obama, despite whether or not the likes the Republican candidate.

This feeling is not uncommon among voters. Mitt Romney has, and has had, a very low approval ratings but is still getting the vast majority of votes. A quite possible reason for this is he is, at the moment, the most likely candidate to defeat Obama.

Also on the 8th were three more state primaries -- Indiana, North Carolina, and West Virginia. Romney won all three of the states, which just adds to his already vast lead. He is now only 178 delegate from the magic number. The closest other candidate is Santorum, who is now getting few low amounts of votes due to his dropping out. Santorum currently needs another 880 delegates.

Source:
http://nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/08/11596180-republican-santorum-endorses-romney-for-president?lite

Additional:
I have been keeping an updated Excel spread sheet covering the votes, delegates, and overall stats. This spreadsheet is online at http://ow.ly/aSNpc

26. "Newt Gingrich drops out: ‘Truly wild ride’ is over"

On May 2nd, Newt Gingrich dropped out of the Republican presidential nomination. 

Gingrich's campaign was over a while ago, when he reduced spending. However, his campaign has been hopeless for much longer.

Gingrich was receiving approximately 19.9% of the votes. This left a 8% gap between him and Santorum. This might not seem incredibly huge. Over the course of 12 million votes (the current total votes), 8% totals to just shy of 1 million votes.

The numbers have been against him for nearly the entire campaign. Gingrich as won a few states outright. His dropping out is no surprise. There was zero chance of him catching up and passing Romney. Still, he kept hinting for days at dropping out but did not. It seems as if he was desperately hoping people would suddenly start massing, begging him not to drop out. But, alas, they did not.

Sources:

http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/delegates

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0512/75838.html