JACKSONVILLE, Florida (Reuters) – This time, the cheering will be back.

Five days before their showdown in Florida’s Republican presidential primary, Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney headed into a debate on Thursday night that had the makings of a raucous encounter between increasingly bitter rivals.

Unlike Monday’s subdued debate in Tampa, in which the crowd was urged to remain silent and not cheer candidates’ answers, this debate will allow cheering.

Gingrich, the former House of Representatives speaker who in previous debates has seemed to feed off the energy from vibrant crowds, said after Monday’s debate that he did not want to attend cheer-free debates.

Gingrich and Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and private equity executive, are in a close race in a politically divided state whose primary may set the tone for the rest of the state-by-state campaign to pick a Republican challenger to Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 6 election.

If Gingrich pulls off a second straight victory after his decisive triumph in last Saturday’s primary in South Carolina, he would be seen as the front-runner in the race despite Romney’s advantages in fundraising and organization.

It would be another improbable turn for Gingrich, whose campaign collapsed last summer only to come back to life on the strength of strong performances in debates.

MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) – Republican Newt Gingrich, cranking up the campaign rhetoric, mocked White House rival Mitt Romney’s plan for self-deportation of illegal immigrants as a “fantasy” on Wednesday and assailed President Barack Obama’s tax ideas as “stupid.”

Gingrich, who has surged in recent polls to pull into a virtual tie with Romney in Florida after beating him last week in South Carolina, poked fun at Romney during a forum sponsored by the Spanish-language network Univision.

He ridiculed Romney’s statement on Monday that he would support “self-deportation” of illegal immigrants rather than force the government to round them up and send them home, a stance that has drawn criticism as unworkable.

“You have to live in a world of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts and automatic, you know, $20 million a year income with no work to have some fantasy this far from reality,” Gingrich said in a reference to Romney’s fortune, revealed when he released his tax records earlier this week.

Romney has taken a tougher position on illegal immigration than Gingrich, including threatening to veto the Dream Act, a proposal that would allow some children of illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

Momentum from a big win at the South Carolina primary election last week has propelled Gingrich into Florida, which holds its primary vote on January 21.

At an earlier campaign stop, Gingrich also criticized Obama’s proposal in Tuesday’s State of the Union speech to make those who earn at least $1 million a year pay a marginal tax rate of at least 30 percent.

/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney bowed to political pressure and gave the public a glimpse inside his personal fortune on Tuesday, releasing U.S. tax returns showing he pays a lower effective tax rate than many top wage-earners.

Unlike Americans who rely on a paycheck, Romney earns most of his income from investment profits, dividends and interest. The returns for 2010 and estimates for 2011 showed that he will pay a total of $6.2 million in taxes on income of $42.5 million.

Romney and his wife Ann paid an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent in 2010 and expect to pay a 15.4 percent effective tax rate when they file their returns for 2011.

Those rates are far below the top income tax rate on wages, which is 35 percent, because the U.S. tax code in recent years has favored investment income over wage income.

Targeting popular unease with rising U.S. income disparity, President Barack Obama will put efforts to make the tax code fairer at the center of his re-election campaign when he delivers his annual State of the Union speech at the Capitol on Tuesday night.

Obama will renew his appeal for a “Buffett rule” to ensure that the ultra-wealthy pay their “fair share” of taxes. This idea is backed by multibillionaire Warren Buffett. His assistant Debbie Bosanek – who he says pays a higher tax rate than he does – will sit with first lady Michelle Obama for the speech.

One of the wealthiest Americans ever to run for the White House, Romney did not release returns from the years 1984-1999, when he began making his fortune buying and selling companies as a private equity financier with Bain Capital, but those lucrative years did give him a special tax advantage.

/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney released tax records on Tuesday indicating he will pay $6.2 million in taxes on a total of $45.2 million in income over the years 2010 and 2011.

Bowing to increasing political pressure to provide more detail about his vast wealth, the former private equity executive released tax returns indicating he and his wife, Ann, paid an effective tax rate of 13.9 percent in 2010. They expect to pay a 15.4 percent rate when they file their returns for 2011.

Romney’s tax rate is below that of most wage-earning Americans because most of his income, as outlined in more than 500 pages of tax documents, flows from capital gains on investments.

Under the U.S. tax code, capital gains are taxed at 15 percent, compared with a top tax rate of 35 percent for wage earners.

Romney released the tax returns after a week in which his chief rival for the Republican presidential nomination, former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich, questioned whether Romney was hiding information about his finances and cast him as being out of touch with most Americans.

Gingrich’s attacks on Romney helped him upset the former Massachusetts governor in the South Carolina primary on Saturday.

Since then, Romney has vowed to be more aggressive in returning fire.

TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) – Republican U.S. presidential candidate Mitt Romney sharpened his attacks on rival Newt Gingrich’s business past and character before a crucial debate on Monday night in which Romney needs a strong performance to recharge his bid for the White House.

Romney blasted Gingrich as an erratic politician who has switched positions “almost like a pinball machine,” in a toughening of his rhetoric to try to halt his chief rival’s surprising momentum.

Seeking to regain his footing after losing Saturday’s South Carolina primary badly to Gingrich, Romney challenged the former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives to return the $1.6 million in consulting fees he made from Freddie Mac and detail the work he performed for the troubled mortgage giant.

It looked to be a tit-for-tat “disclosure” demand on Romney’s part after Gingrich effectively attacked him last week for not releasing his tax returns. Romney, who is worth some $270 million, will disclose two years of returns on Tuesday.

New opinion polls show Gingrich has jumped into the lead in Florida before the state’s pivotal January 31 primary, the fourth contest in the state-by-state battle for the Republican nomination to face President Barack Obama, a Democrat, in the November 6 election.

A Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely Republican voters put Gingrich on top of Romney by 9 percentage points and an Insider Advantage poll showed Gingrich ahead by 8 points.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who also previously led private equity firm Bain Capital, hit Gingrich hard on character issues. He warned Republicans there might be enough baggage in Gingrich’s past that could hurt the party’s chances of taking back the White House from Obama.

TAMPA, Florida (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Monday sharpened his attacks on rival Newt Gingrich’s business past and character ahead of a crucial debate in which Romney needs a strong performance to recharge his bid for the White House.

Romney blasted Gingrich on Monday as an erratic politician who has switched positions “almost like a pinball machine,” in a toughening of his rhetoric to try to halt his chief rival’s surprising momentum.

Seeking to regain his footing after losing Saturday’s South Carolina primary badly to Gingrich, Romney challenged the former speaker of the House of Representatives to return the $1.6 million in consulting fees he made from Freddie Mac and detail the work he performed for the troubled mortgage giant.

It looked to be a tit-for-tat “disclosure” tactic on Romney’s part after Gingrich effectively attacked him last week for not releasing his tax returns. Romney, who is worth some $270 million, will disclose two years of returns on Tuesday.

New opinion polls show that Gingrich has now jumped into the lead in Florida ahead of the state’s pivotal January 31 primary, the fourth contest in the state-by-state battle for the Republican nomination to face President Barack Obama, a Democrat, in the November 6 election.

A Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely Republican voters put Gingrich on top of Romney by 9 percentage points and an Insider Advantage poll showed Gingrich with a lead of 8 percentage points.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who also previously led private equity firm Bain Capital, hit Gingrich hard on character issues. He warned Republicans that there might be enough baggage in Gingrich’s past that could hurt the party’s chances of taking back the White House from Obama.

Columbia, South Carolina (Reuters) – Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney pledged on Sunday to release his tax returns this week, bowing to pressure from critics and hoping to make up for a misstep that helped rival Newt Gingrich win South Carolina’s primary race.

Long considered the frontrunner, Romney stumbled badly in debates last week on his delay in disclosing his tax returns and then lost his air of being the inevitable Republican nominee after a resurrected Gingrich soundly defeated him in the third contest.

Gingrich, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, pounced on Romney’s surprising weakness and rode it to victory on Saturday, trouncing the former governor of Massachusetts by 40 percent to 28 percent in South Carolina.

Trying to regain his momentum as the race heads to the pivotal state of Florida, Romney sought to draw a line under the bad week and fix his error. He said he would release his 2010 returns and an estimate for 2011 on Tuesday.

“We made a mistake holding off as long as we did and it just was a distraction,” Romney said on Fox News Sunday.

Last week, Romney said he pays a tax rate of around 15 percent, a low rate compared to many American wage earners but in line with what wealthy individuals pay on income that largely comes from investments.

One of the wealthiest U.S. presidential candidates in history, Romney emphasized he was releasing two years of returns after Gingrich posted his taxes for one year — 2010 — on Thursday.

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (Reuters) – Decisively beaten in South Carolina, Republican Mitt Romney signaled a tougher approach to newly resurgent rival Newt Gingrich on Saturday to get his 2012 presidential campaign back on track.

Romney’s loss punctured his aura of inevitability as the eventual Republican nominee to face Democratic President Barack Obama on November 6 that he had built up after a narrow loss in Iowa and a victory in New Hampshire earlier this month.

The pressure on Romney following his loss in the South Carolina primary is to right the ship for the January 31 contest in Florida. It is a state with a more diverse, moderate electorate that may play more to Romney’s strengths, compared to South Carolina where many conservatives felt he lacked Gingrich’s fighting spirit.

“In Florida it won’t be a total consolidation of the conservative vote for Gingrich,” said Republican strategist Charlie Black. “The next several states are good for Romney.”

Romney conceded that the state-by-state battle for the Republican nomination will now be a long one.

Romney’s challenge is to avoid the type of distractions that dogged him in South Carolina, where his campaign got caught up in a controversy over when and if he would release his personal tax records.

Romney, one of the richest men ever to seek the presidency, earlier in the week acknowledged that his income tax rate is “probably closer to 15 percent than anything,” making it lower than the rate paid by most wage-earning Americans. Romney has an estimated net worth of $270 million.

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (Reuters) – Newt Gingrich jolted the Republican presidential race on Saturday with a resounding victory in South Carolina, where voters rejected frontrunner Mitt Romney’s pitch that he is the best bet to fix a broken economy and defeat President Barack Obama.

Gingrich’s come-from-behind win in conservative South Carolina injects unexpected volatility into a Republican nominating race that until this week appeared to be a coronation for Romney, the former Massachusetts governor and private-equity chief.

Three different candidates – Gingrich, Romney and former senator Rick Santorum – now have won the first three contests in the state-by-state battle for the Republican presidential nomination to face Obama, a Democrat, on November 6.

Gingrich’s triumph may lead to a protracted battle of attrition for the Republican nomination in which the candidates expend money and energy to beat each other instead of having the party unite behind one standard-bearer focusing on Obama.

With nearly all the votes counted, Gingrich had pulled in 40 percent of the vote, followed by Romney with 28 percent, networks reported. Former senator Rick Santorum was in third with 17 percent and U.S. congressman Ron Paul in fourth with 13 percent.

Riding a series of feisty debate performances, the former speaker of the House of Representatives captured the lingering unease of conservative voters in South Carolina who view Romney’s moderate past and shifting policy stances with suspicion. Gingrich argued that he would be able to better articulate the party’s conservative ideals.

The next contest is the Florida primary on January 31.

GREENVILLE, South Carolina (Reuters) – A Ham House Showdown between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich was averted Saturday, but not without them aiming a few shots at each other.

Both Republican presidential candidates had arranged campaign events for the same time in the same place – Tommy’s Country Ham House – the day of the South Carolina primary vote.

But Romney arrived 45 minutes earlier than scheduled at the Greenville restaurant and avoided a face-to-face Election Day encounter with Gingrich, whose bus rolled up to the eatery just after Romney’s left.

“I have a question. Where’s Mitt?” Gingrich said of the former Massachusetts governor, telling the crowd, “I don’t think they have New England clam chowder on the menu.”

A Gingrich aide declared of Romney’s early arrival: “They blinked.”

But a Romney aide said Romney’s previous event ended sooner than expected and he wanted to go early to Tommy’s Country Ham House, a popular destination for political candidates who can talk up voters over breakfasts of ham, eggs, grits and the like.

“We see Newt all the time. We don’t get to see the voters of South Carolina every day,” the aide said.