PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum is answering critics who say he is giving up on Florida.

The former senator says he is not giving up. There were reports Friday that Santorum is going home and abandoning his campaign in Florida.

That may be what the reports say, but that is not what the he told KDKA’s Stacy Smith in Jacksonville, Fla., when he caught up with the Santorum after the GOP debate.

He said that rumors he is out of money and scaling back his campaign are erroneous.

He says he going back home to put together his tax information, and take care of some housekeeping items.

“I haven’t been home, to our house, since Christmas day. We’re going to be gone less than 24 hours,” Santorum said. “We’ll be back Saturday night and we’re going to have a full day Sunday. Right now, we have a couple things scheduled on Monday, and we’re making the decision whether to leave Monday afternoon or wait till Tuesday morning.”

Santorum says he probably will not be in Florida to wait for the returns because he is moving his campaign to the next set of states.

“So, we thought maybe we’ll get a jump on everybody else and get out to Missouri and Minnesota and Colorado and Nevada, and end up in Nevada on Tuesday night, and sort of plant our flag there,” he said.

Stacy Smith: “You mentioned Nevada, you mentioned Minnesota, you mentioned Missouri, but those are not the glamorous kind of states that people talk about winning the presidency, but you have to go there.”

Rick Santorum: “Oh yeah, everybody talks about the first three states and the reason they do is usually the race is somewhat decided by then, but it’s not going to be this time.”

And Santorum believes it is not going to be over for some time. In fact, he is gearing up for the Pennsylvania primary on April 24th.

“We’re very excited,” he said. “We think we’re going to do exceptional well, got a lot of great people who want to step forward and want to run as delegates in the Congressional districts, and obviously, when Pennsylvania rolls around we think we’ll do very well and win the state.”

As for the Florida primary, Santorum said that going in he expected a third place finish and he is satisfied with that.

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