Why don’t Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum just quit?

After nearly 40 primaries, Mitt Romney has more than twice as many delegates as Rick Santorum and more than four times Newt Gingrich’s tally. And Ron Paul’s count barely registers. So why is this still a four-man race?

Part of the answer lies in the fact that decisions to quit a presidential race have little to do with voters and delegates — and everything to do with what’s going on in a candidate’s head. Staying in when there’s no hope of winning can become a quest for a consolation prize, such as a future Cabinet appointment. But fighting a losing battle also reflects human beings’ tendency to gamble, no matter how long the odds. It’s also about fighting for one’s reputation. Who wants to forever be regarded as a failed presidential candidate?

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Santorum clearly doesn’t. After Tuesday’s losses to Romney in the District, Maryland and Wisconsin, he conjured up comparisons to Ronald Reagan’s long-shot GOP nomination bid in 1976:

Reagan “lost almost every early primary. He only won one until May. . . . Everybody told him to get out of the race,” Santorum said in a speech in Pennsylvania. “There’s one person who understood we don’t win by moving to the middle.”

Sure, Reagan lost the nomination to Gerald Ford, but Santorum conveniently ignored that, focusing instead on the idea that he might still have a chance.

Behavioral economists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, pioneers in the field of decision science, discovered that when an individual faces a choice between a sure loss and a gamble, he will go for the riskier option rather than settle for defeat.

For candidates such as Santorum and Gingrich, a loss would be highly public. When you’re the exciting new candidate, you’re likely to focus on the endless possibilities, and optimism rules the day. But when the polls turn against you, the fear of failure starts to weigh more heavily. Despite whatever they go on to do, the stigma of losing can be nearly impossible to shake. For example, a Los Angeles Times headline last summer read “Failed presidential candidate Al Gore attacks winning candidate Obama over his environment policies.” The story had nothing to do with campaigning, yet Gore was still branded a loser.

For politicians like Gingrich — who, as a junior congressman in 1984, told reporters that he had “enormous personal ambition” and wanted to “shift the entire planet” — the idea of being one among many failed candidates might be too much to bear. This can result in doubling down on the unsuccessful course of action. So what if the last primary didn’t go as planned? The next one will make up for it.

It’s too late for Santorum and Gingrich to avoid loserdom. But if they voluntarily end their campaigns, they’ll be actively putting themselves in that camp rather than continuing to run and (oops!) getting stuck there anyway. It’s far easier to explain away a failure if you weren’t the “decider.”

The problem this poses for political candidates is the same one that gamblers face after losing their first $100. The economically rational move would be to cut their losses and walk away. However, dreaming of winning, however slim the odds, makes it difficult for most people to stop playing.