Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says he won’t be dropping out of the race for the nomination anytime soon, even if he loses the Southern states Mississippi and Alabama on Tuesday.

“We’ll clearly do well enough to move on and I think there’s a fair chance we’ll win. But I just want to set this to rest once and for all, we’re going to Tampa,” Gingrich said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Gingrich was walking back comments made by his spokesman R.C. Hammond on Wednesday in which Hammond was asked if Gingrich had to win Mississippi and Alabama to remain a viable candidate, to which Hammond simply replied, “Yes.”