Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum said on Fox News Wednesday that he will announce whether he will run for president in 2016 on May 27. 
 
 Santorum told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren that he will announce his plans in Butler, Pennsylvania where he grew up. 
 
 “It was a great campaign last time. We were clearly the underdog and we are starting out as looking at this race and we would be in the same position and so we are very comfortable there,” Santorum said. 
 
 Santorum previously ran for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, where he came second to eventual nominee Mitt Romney. Santorum was known for his emphasis on social issues, which he told Greta would be part of any potential campaign. 
 
 “…One of the principle reasons for the lack of economic opportunity is in fact the breakdown of the family. Talking about what we can do to help strengthen that family structure is going to be certainly a part of the campaign,” Santorum said. 
 
 Should he announce, Santorum would enter a packed Republican field. Just this week former business executive Carly Fiorina, neurosurgeon Ben Carson and former Ark. Gov. Mike Huckabee announced their intention to run for the nomination. They join Sens. Marco Rubio, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz in seeking the nomination. 

 Nearly four years ago, a grassroots victory in the Iowa caucuses propelled Rick Santorum to an unlikely second-place finish in the Republican primary. When Santorum launches a second bid for president Wednesday in his hometown of Butler, Penn., he will seek to recapture some of that political magic in pursuit of the ultimate prize. 
 
 But 2016 is no 2012. 
 
 “I think he recognizes that it's a lot different this time around, because the field is different and the circumstances are different,” said Iowa activist Sam Clovis, who supported Santorum in 2012 but has not yet committed to a candidate for this election cycle. 
 
 In spite of his success in 2012, Santorum starts this election cycle as perhaps an even greater underdog, with anemic support in public polling and facing more competition than before — in particular in Iowa, where Santorum must perform well to be viable. 
 
 The Republican field, considerably broader and more competitive than in 2012, is stacked with candidates who might take a bite out of Santorum’s conservative base, and evangelical Christian voters in particular, including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008, and Sen. Ted Cruz. 
 
 And Santorum does not only face a more intense face-off for voters in Iowa, but also for top aides and activists. Already, much of Santorum’s former Iowa crew has fanned out among other campaigns. 
 
 Chuck Laudner, who ran Santorum’s successful Iowa caucus operation in 2012, has been poached by businessman and television personality Donald Trump; Jill Latham Ryan, who worked as a senior adviser to Santorum’s Iowa campaign and later as his deputy campaign manager, and her husband Nick Ryan, who ran Santorum’s super PAC, are both on board with Huckabee’s super PAC. 
 
 Santorum “has lost the backbone of some of his key Iowa supporters,” said one former campaign aide. 
 
 The same is true of some Santorum’s former national organization. Notably, his former campaign manager Mike Biundo has signed on to spearhead Sen. Rand Paul’s New Hampshire operation. Still, Santorum’s longtime senior adviser John Brabender remains in the fold. 
 
 In past election cycles, former runners-up to the Republican nomination have come back as frontrunners on their next try. John McCain won the GOP nod in 2008 after placing second to George W. Bush in 2000; Mitt Romney, who finished second to McCain in 2008, came back to win the nomination in 2012. 
 
 But the trend has not held for Santorum, who is polling in the bottom tier of Republicans. He currently scores just 2.3 percent in the national RealClearPolitics polling average, and 3 percent in the RealClearPolitics average of Iowa polls. 
 
 Santorum has sought publicly to project confidence in spite of those numbers, however. 
 
 “It was a great campaign last time,” Santorum said on Fox News earlier this month. “We were clearly the underdog, and we are starting out as looking at this race and we would be in the same position. And so we are very comfortable there.” 
 
 To try to recapture the magic of 2012, Santorum’s campaign will likely look much like it did during that election cycle, allies say, characterized by small meet-and-greets in every one of Iowa’s 99 counties. Santorum will make a beeline for the Hawkeye State after his announcement Wednesday, beginning with an event at the Machine Shed restaurant in Davenport on Thursday. 
 
 But, unlike last time, many Iowans have already personally met Santorum or are well familiar with him. 
 
 At the recent Lincoln Dinner in Iowa, a cattle call of sorts for Republican presidential candidates, activist and Santorum supporter Karen Fesler approached attendees to remind them that Santorum was there, should they wish to meet him. But many people had already met Santorum multiple times during the 2012 election cycle and went to schmooze with other candidates instead. 
 
 Santorum’s allies are hopeful, however, that Iowans will return for another look — even if Santorum no longer has that new-car smell. 
 
 “I don't think anyone has summarily dismissed him,” Fesler said. “There's a lot of people out there that are testing the waters, kicking the tires of other candidates.” 

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 As Rick Santorum prepares to officially enter the 2016 race on Wednesday night, a favorite parlor game of Republican insiders is explaining his plummet from the heights of 2012, when he won 11 state caucuses and primaries, to the indifference of voters today, as reflected in polls. 
 
 Among the explanations: Mr. Santorum’s success last time was mainly a fluke. This time, there are many more capable contenders. Voters want a fresh face, not a blast from the past. 
 
 But seldom does one hear what may be an equally likely explanation: Mr. Santorum’s reinvention from a cultural warrior to a working-class hero is not catching on. 
 
 Last year, Mr. Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, published “Blue Collar Conservatives,’’ a campaign manifesto arguing that Republicans should not cede the issue of middle-class income stagnation to Democrats. He wrote of laid-off factory workers who toil at “part-time jobs at big-box stores.’’ 
 
 In campaign appearances, Mr. Santorum can seem either brave or crazy for ignoring red-meat social issues in favor of economic policies that go against his party’s usual views: raising the minimum wage, support for the Export-Import Bank. 
 
 Mr. Santorum, the grandson of a coal miner from western Pennsylvania, seems to come by his populism honestly, which also includes opposition to immigration policies encouraging competition for low-wage jobs. But there is little evidence that his economic message is winning him supporters. 
 
 At a joint appearance with former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas last week in Cedar Falls, Iowa, speaking to about 100 social conservatives who had elbowed their way past scores of gay rights protesters, Mr. Huckabee pumped up the crowd by warning that “religious liberty” was in dire jeopardy from “nine unelected people in black robes.’’ The crowd loved it. 
 
 Mr. Santorum, by contrast, spent his time onstage criticizing the Republican Party for championing business owners rather than the people who work for them. 
 
 “It’s hard for us to listen to,’’ he scolded, “but we have seen the wealthy do much better over the last six years,’’ 
 
 Conservatives, he said, needed to address the issue or “we will be in trouble.’’ 
 
 The applause was merely polite. 
 
 Rick Santorum Announces New Presidential Bid, and New Focus on Middle Class A former senator from Pennsylvania, Mr. Santorum was the runner-up in the 2012 Republican primary race, buoyed by the support of social conservatives, but has had little traction this time. 

 Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum is running for president in 2016. Here is the Republican's take on the Islamic State, immigration, education and more, in his own words. (Alice Li/The Washington Post) 
 
 This story has been updated. 
 
 Rick Santorum is running for president again. Though he never really stopped. 
 
 The former Pennsylvania senator confirmed to ABC News Wednesday morning that he will announce a 2016 presidential bid at an event in his hometown later in the day. 
 
 Now, if the last several presidential cycles were an accurate predictor of the future, Rick Santorum would be the 2016 Republican nominee. 
 
 Yet as the 2012 GOP runner-up announces that he’s officially running again, it is mostly being met with the same collective shrug it got four years ago. 
 
 As he stands now -- polling around 2 percent, when included at all -- there’s a chance Santorum won’t even make the cut to be on the first primary debate stage in August. 
 
 It’s a starkly different position than onetime 2nd place finishers John McCain and Mitt Romney found themselves in when they ran for the White House another time. 
 
 Santorum's official announcement event for his his 2016 candidacy will be held at a manufacturing plant in Cabot, Pa., the town where he grew up north of Pittsburgh. He will again seek to set himself apart from the rest of the field as the candidate looking out for the working class who also has strong credentials on foreign policy and social issues. 
 
 Many political prognosticators were stunned in 2012 when Santorum outlasted the rise and fall of the ragtag 2012 field, edging out Romney with a win in the Iowa caucuses. A devout Catholic known for his deeply held cultural conservatism on issues like abortion and gay marriage, Santorum directed his pitch at blue-collar voters. 
 
 He went on to win 10 more primaries and caucuses to be the last man standing between Romney and the nomination. He dropped out just before the Pennsylvania primary -- a move many believed was to spare him the embarrassment of losing his home state again. 
 
 His longtime campaign strategist, John Brabender, said in a recent interview that Santorum has been counted out so many times in his career that he "wears it as a badge of honor rather than something to get angry about." 
 
 Although he portrays himself as being anti-establishment, Santorum was third-ranking in GOP leadership by the end of his second term in the Senate. But then in 2006, controversy over earlier statements on homosexuality and a Democratic-wave election led to his losing his seat by 18 points. 
 
 After a few years mostly under the radar, he reemerged in states like Iowa and New Hampshire, with an eye on the ultimate comeback: the White House. Reserved as a punchline and rarely included in early public polls, Santorum mounted a scrappy, grassroots campaign around Iowa in a loaned pickup, fondly called "the Chuck Truck." 
 
 Buoyed by the financial assistance of wealthy donor Foster Friess -- who is backing him again -- Santorum went from being the longest long shot with a skeleton staff to the conservatives' last hope against Romney. Almost overnight he was selling his signature sweater vests emblazoned with his name to fans, and hanging with the Duggar family in their motor home. Two sisters from Oklahoma wrote a catchy country song about him they called "Game On," with lyrics such as: "Oh, there is Hope for our Nation again/Maybe the First time Since we Had Ronald Reagan." 
 
 But this time around, the star power in the Republican field is significantly more formidable. Chuck Laudner, who shuttled Santorum around Iowa in his Dodge Ram pickup, has shifted his allegiance to Donald Trump, according to the Des Moines Register. Others in the mix share Santorum's specialty brand of social conservative populism, including 2008 Iowa caucus winner Mike Huckabee and firebrand Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). 
 
 But Brabender insists there is unseen momentum for Santorum, and that his "phone rings off the hook" from consultants wanting to work with the soon-to-be-candidate. Like last time, he said, once voters take the newest models out for a test drive, they'll come back for something "reliable, credible." 
 
 "The new candidates look great until people know more about them," Brabender said. "The question comes, 'Do you have a solid base that are strong supporters that are going to be there?' ... He has to earn some of that back. I don’t think any of that is unusual, or daunting to us. We know what is under the surface."
– Rick Santorum is set to announce today during an interview with George Stephanopoulos that he'll run for president in 2016, ABC News reports. The announcement will take place in Santorum's hometown of Cabot, Pa., and will mark his second run for president, after he finished second to Mitt Romney in the 2012 race for the Republican nomination. So far, all signs point to him positioning himself as the comeback candidate, despite low poll numbers that might not even qualify him for the first primary debate in August, the Washington Post notes—a recent RealClearPolitics polling average placed Santorum 10th among GOP candidates at just 2.3%, the Wall Street Journal notes. "It was a great campaign last time," Santorum said earlier this month, per Fox News. "We were clearly the underdog. ... We would be in the same position and ... we are very comfortable there." John Brabender, Santorum's campaign strategist, echoes that positivity, telling the Post that his "phone rings off the hook" as consultants vie for a chance to work with his boss, adding that Santorum "wears [being counted out so many times before] as a badge of honor rather than something to get angry about." But while some speculate that GOP "star power," as the paper puts it, is too strong this time for Santorum to stand out, the New York Times floats a more nuanced theory: that by flying the blue-collar banner in lieu of tackling hot social issues, Santorum may not be hitting the right chord with conservative voters. The paper notes a joint appearance last week by Santorum and fellow contender Mike Huckabee in front of social conservatives in Iowa: Huckabee spoke about religious liberty and "pumped up the crowd"; Santorum talked about working-class issues and received polite applause.