Newt Gingrich ended his run for U.S. president on Wednesday May 2 after dazzling in televised debates but slumping to defeat in dozens of Republican primaries under attack from rivals who portrayed him as the consummate Washington insider, Reuters reported.

The former U.S. House of Representatives speaker, the face of the Republican Party in the mid-1990s, badly trailed front-runner Mitt Romney in polls and his campaign piled up a debt of $4.3 million.

Gingrich announced his departure from the White House race in a long statement to the media at a hotel in Arlington, Virginia outside the capital that included references to his many grandiose ideas like the establishment of a U.S. colony on the moon.

He fell short of endorsing his former rival Romney but said voters had a clear choice in November's general election between Democratic President Barack Obama and the former Massachusetts governor.