February 05, 2012, 4:52 PM EST

By Brian Faler and John McCormick

(Updates with Armey comments beginning in 12th paragraph)

Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) — Newt Gingrich vowed to continue his fight for the Republican presidential nomination a day after Nevada handed him a second consecutive defeat, saying contests in the South next month will put him in a “very competitive” position.

Trailing Mitt Romney in momentum, money and organization, and facing a dearth of the debates that have buoyed his candidacy, Gingrich said states voting on “Super Tuesday” would be far more receptive to his efforts to cast himself as the conservative alternative to Romney.

“Our goal is to get to Super Tuesday where we’re in much more favorable territory,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program. “My goal over the next few weeks is to draw very sharp distinctions between Romney’s positions,” which he called “timid,” and his own. He downplayed the Nevada loss, saying “this is the state he won last time and he won it this time.”

Romney, solidifying his front-runner status, won easily yesterday in Nevada, his third victory in five nomination contests. He took 48 percent of the vote, with 71 percent of precincts reporting, according to the Associated Press. Gingrich came in second with 23 percent, followed by Texas Representative Ron Paul’s 19 percent and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum with 11 percent.

More Primaries

Attention now turns to a trio of caucuses this week in Maine, Colorado and Minnesota, followed by Feb. 28 primaries in Arizona and Michigan. Missouri will hold a non-binding primary on Feb. 7 with delegates allocated according to the state’s caucuses in March.

Georgia, which the former House speaker represented in Congress, as well as Tennessee, Oklahoma are among the 11 states that will hold Super Tuesday contests on March 6. Alabama follows on March 13 with Texas weighing in on April 3.

“We believe that by the time Texas is over, we’ll be very, very competitive,” Gingrich said.

Asked about Romney’s fundraising and organizational advantages, Gingrich said it’s his positions on issues such as taxes and Social Security that excite the party’s base.

“I hope by the time we get to Super Tuesday that we’ll have made the case that a genuine conservative is a dramatically better choice to defeat Barack Obama than somebody who is in many ways not very distinguishable from President Obama,” Gingrich told CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Lunar Colony

He also defended his proposal to establish a lunar colony, mocked this weekend on the television comedy program “Saturday Night Live,” likening it to former President John F. Kennedy’s bid to send a man to the moon.

“This was not some slip — this was a deliberate effort to start a conversation at a time when the Chinese and the Indians and the Russians are aggressively moving into space,” he said on “Meet the Press.”

Former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey expressed doubt that Gingrich, whose only victory has come in South Carolina, could still find his way to the party’s nomination.

“I don’t think Newt will be able to replicate that magic moment he had in South Carolina,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Gingrich, he said, is taking a “second-rate campaign and turning it into a first-rate vendetta.”

Republican Dilemna

Republicans will likely be “left with a dilemma that we are not going to get a reliable, small government conservative out of this nominating process,” said Armey, who now heads the Washington-based FreedomWorks.

Santorum and Paul, also appearing on Sunday morning talk shows, both said they will continue their bids. Santorum told “Fox News Sunday” he expects to do “very well” in Minnesota and Colorado.

“I think we’re going to show improvement — this race is a long, long way from being over,” he said.

Paul said he couldn’t predict when his campaign would ring up its first victory.

“But we have three or four caucus states that we believe our numbers are doing pretty good, so we have to just wait and see and continue to do exactly what we’re doing,” he said on ABC’s “This Week With George Stephanopoulos.”

Entrance polls yesterday showed a quarter of Republican caucus-goers in Nevada were Mormons, as is Romney, and he won 91 percent of that vote. He won support from three-quarters of those who listed the ability to beat Obama in November’s general election as the most important candidate quality for them.

‘Troubled Times’

“Nevadans know that our future is brighter and better than these troubled times,” Romney told supporters yesterday. “It’s better than the misguided policies and broken promises of the last three years and the failed leadership of one man.”

Romney dominated the television advertising contest in Nevada. His campaign spent about $488,460 on broadcast ads in the state through Feb. 2, according to New York-based Kantar Media’s CMAG, which tracks advertising. Restore Our Future, a political super-committee that is independently supporting Romney’s campaign, spent $73,240 through Feb. 2.

Paul, who finished second to Romney in the 2008 Nevada caucuses, spent $158,590 to air ads last summer and again in late January in the state. Gingrich and Santorum and their allied political committees didn’t air broadcast ads in Nevada.

At the end of 2011, Romney reported having $20 million in his campaign bank account, while Gingrich had $2.1 million as well as $1.2 million in reported debts.

Gingrich has remained viable in part because of $10 million contributed to a political action committee supporting his candidacy by Sheldon Adelson and his wife. Adelson, a casino executive based in Las Vegas, hasn’t said whether he plans to make additional donations.

The New York Times reported today that Adelson has assured Romney’s campaign he will provide financial support for his effort, should he become the nominee. Phone calls and e-mails to an Adelson aide weren’t immediately returned.

–With assistance from Lisa Lerer and Julianna Goldman in Las Vegas, Nevada. Editors: Ann Hughey, Fred Strasser.

Editors: Ann Hughey, Fred Strasser.

John McCormick in Las Vegas, Nevada, at jmccormick16@bloomberg.net;

To contact the reporters on this story: To contact the reporter on this story: Brian Faler in Washington at bfaler@bloomerg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jeanne Cummings at jcummings21@bloomberg.net