COLUMBIA, South Carolina (CNN) -- South Carolina Republican Party Chairwoman Karen Floyd seemed to suggest Wednesday that the time had come for GOP Gov. Mark Sanford to consider resigning from office.
Gov. Mark Sanford has said it's better for him to keep his governorship to "learn lessons."
"For the past two days, I have been speaking with Republican leaders across South Carolina," she said in a statement. "There is clearly a growing view that the time may have come for Governor Sanford to remove himself and his family from the limelight, so that he can devote his efforts full-time to repairing the damage in his personal life."
The statement comes on the same day as a growing number of GOP state senators called for Sanford to step down.
CNN has learned that GOP Sens. Daniel Verdin, Shane Martin, Ronnie Cromer and Wes Hayes joined the anti-Sanford chorus Wednesday morning, bringing the total number of Republican senators calling for the governor's resignation to 13. There are 27 Republicans in the state Senate.
Another state senator stopped just short of calling for Sanford to step down Wednesday. Glenn McConnell, Senate president pro tempore, didn't explicitly ask Sanford to resign, but he did ask him "to do the right thing for himself, his family and our state."
Sanford and his staff have said repeatedly this week that he will not resign. He wrote in a message to his political action committee e-mail list Monday that while he considered resigning, "I would ultimately be a better person and of more service in whatever doors God opened next in life if I stuck around to learn lessons rather than running and hiding down at the farm."