COLUMBIA, South Carolina (Reuters) ? Republican Mitt Romney struggled to regain his footing on Wednesday as his once formidable lead in the South Carolina presidential primary appeared to contract and he faced increased pressure to reveal more about his vast financial holdings.
A new CNN poll said Romney's lead over rival Newt Gingrich before Saturday's primary had shrunk to 10 percentage points, 33 percent to 23 percent, down from a 19-point lead two weeks ago.
The results, and a clear sense of urgency in the Romney campaign, suggested that Gingrich's calls for Romney to release his tax returns and efforts to brand the former Massachusetts governor as an out-of-touch elitist could be resonating in South Carolina, where the jobless rate is near 10 percent.
The head of Romney's campaign in South Carolina, Curtis Loftis, appealed to supporters to turn out on Saturday.
"We've got to work harder than you know. We've got to get everyone to the polls, or we will not be able to send Barack Obama home," he told a crowd in suburban Columbia.
Gingrich, a former U.S. House of Representative speaker, seems to have found an effective line of attack in recent days, drawing cheers during speeches in which he has emphasized the need to create jobs.
At one campaign appearance on Wednesday, Gingrich called Democratic President Barack Obama's rejection of the Keystone oil pipeline project a "stunningly stupid" decision that would cost thousands of jobs.
Gingrich has gradually backed off from a poorly received strategy of calling Romney a job killer for Romney's time leading Bain Capital, a private equity firm that overhauled companies and sometimes laid off workers in the process.
Romney, the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination to face Obama in the November 6 election, added to his problems on Tuesday.
The former executive with an estimated worth of $270 million acknowledged this week that his income tax rate is about 15 percent - well below the rates paid by most wage-earning Americans.
Romney's rate is lower because most of his income flows from investments, and under the U.S. tax code, capital gains are taxed at 15 percent.
His comment put Romney at the forefront of a national debate over the fairness of U.S. income tax rates, a discussion Gingrich happily jumped into on Wednesday by declaring that his tax rate was 31 percent.
Romney's revelation came after Monday night's candidates' debate in which Romney - who has long been reluctant to release his tax returns - said for the first time he would release them, but not until April, the deadline for filing federal returns but well after most key nominating contests.
Questions over Romney's finances and wealth have taken some of the glow off of his campaign, which just a few days ago seemed headed toward an easy victory in South Carolina that would be a huge step toward the nomination.
Romney's efforts to get away from the tax issue and return to his campaign message of adding jobs in a tepid economy, took another hit Wednesday morning when New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a key Romney ally, urged him to release his income tax forms.
Christie played down the notion that the forms would reveal much about Romney's fortune that isn't already known.
"Let's get all the facts out there. See what the tax returns say. And I think everybody will know that the story is probably much ado about nothing," Christie told the MSNBC program "Morning Joe."
Christie suggested that the attention being paid to Romney's finances was mostly a political drama aimed at undermining the front-runner before the South Carolina primary, the third contest in the state-by-state battle for the nomination.
Romney has won the first two contests, in Iowa and new Hampshire.
Some Republican voters said on Wednesday they did not see Romney's tax returns or finances as big issues.
"I think it's political dirt," said Don Ethier, 66, an undecided voter in Spartanburg. "They're needing something to discredit him, and they're making something out of nothing."
Others, however, thought the scrutiny of Romney's finances was warranted.
"It's certainly fair, but I think we have so many other issues that we need to address," said Ruth Tallant, 64, another undecided voter.
PRESSURE IS ON
Across South Carolina, there was one sure sign that the Romney campaign was feeling pressure from Gingrich.
As it has done previously to try to stem any perceived momentum by Gingrich or another rival, Romney's campaign unleashed ads and surrogates to attack them.
They cast Gingrich as an "unreliable leader" and "undisciplined" during his tenure as speaker of the House.
In one of Romney's Internet ads released Wednesday, former congresswoman Susan Molinari described Gingrich's style as speaker as "leadership by chaos."
"The last time Newt Gingrich was the head of the Republican Party as speaker, he became so controversial, he helped re-elect a Democratic president," Molinari said, referring to Bill Clinton.
Romney himself also went on the offensive, belittling Gingrich's claim that he helped to create millions of jobs as a congressman when Republican Ronald Reagan was president in the 1980s.
"A congressman taking credit for creating jobs is like (former U.S. vice president) Al Gore taking credit for inventing the Internet," Romney said. "Businesses create jobs."
In CNN's South Carolina poll, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum was in third place at 16 percent support, followed by Texas congressman Ron Paul, who garnered 13 percent and Texas Governor Rick Perry at 6 percent.
The poll of 505 voters likely to take part in the Republican primary had a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.
Gingrich and Santorum are battling to put together a conservative coalition big enough to top Romney, who still hasn't won over some of the most conservative Republicans.
Gingrich received high marks from Republican voters here for his performance in Monday's debate, during which he received a standing ovation from the crowd for defending his decision to call Obama "the food stamp president."
Another debate is set for Thursday night.
In another boost to Gingrich, Sarah Palin of Alaska, the Republican vice presidential candidate in 2008, said she would vote for him if she lived in South Carolina.
That endorsement might win Gingrich some votes from backers of the conservative Tea Party faction, which seeks limited government and lower taxes.
But Adam Temple, a South Carolina Republican consultant who is not supporting any of the candidates, said: "I don't know if there's enough time for (Gingrich) to pull it off."
(Additional reporting by Sam Youngman, John Whitesides, Susan Heavey, Colleen Jenkins, and Lily Kuo; Editing by David Lindsey)
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