US Election 2012: Jon Huntsman 'to pull out of the presidential race' The former Utah governor will hold a morning press conference in South Carolina on Monday morning, where a spokesman said he will say that he was "proud of the race that he ran" but "did not want to stand in the way of the person with the best chance to beat President Obama." Mr Huntsman ran out of money and momentum after staking his campaign on New Hampshire but only finishing third behind Mr Romney and Ron Paul. At the time he said the result gave him a "ticket to ride" but he struggled to make any impression on voters in South Carolina, a more conservative state where voters were not receptive to his support for gay civil unions or to his decision to serve President Barack Obama as ambassador to China. His multi-millionaire father could have subsidized his campaign but it was evidently decided within the family that that would have been throwing money away or would have created the wrong impression on voters, or both. In his resignation speech, Mr Huntsman is also likely to underline his commitment to his message of reconciliation and more civil discourse in Washington. He ran as a moderate conservative with a record of creating jobs in his state able to work across the aisle. He will be absent from the stage at a debate on Monday night in Myrtle Beach. The race is now down to five candidates, with Mr Romney in a position to place one hand on the trophy if he can win South Carolina. He has already won Iowa, albeit by a whisker, and New Hampshire comfortably. Every poll in the Bible belt state has him ahead, by an average margin of eight points. But he faces a battle to ease concerns among the state's evangelical voters about his Mormon faith and liberal stances when serving as governor of Massachusetts.