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Newt Gingrich surged in the Republican White House race ahead of Saturday's key South Carolina vote after lambasting the US media for digging into his past marital infidelity.

The former House speaker slammed the media on Thursday after the airing of an interview with an ex-wife and sparred with top rival Mitt Romney as the four remaining candidates battled for the hearts of southern conservatives.

A Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey released Thursday showed Gingrich (35 percent) with a six-point lead over former Massachusetts governor Romney (29 percent), with Texas Representative Ron Paul and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum tied at 15 percent just 36 hours before the state primary.

Gingrich has risen with a series of feisty debate performances, and on Thursday came out swinging with a blistering reply to the first debate question that drew a standing ovation from the crowd of southern Republicans.

Asked about his second ex-wife's claim in a television interview that he asked her to have an "open marriage," Gingrich denied the claim as "false" and called the question "as close to despicable as anything I can imagine."

"I am tired of the elite media protecting (President) Barack Obama by attacking Republicans," thundered Gingrich, who as speaker in the 1990s hounded Democratic President Bill Clinton over an extra-marital affair.

Gingrich had his own six-year affair with an aide who is now his third wife. He has since converted to Catholicism and expressed regret over past failings.

The former House speaker aimed for a surprise victory here over Romney after saying that the former governor and multi-millionaire investor would lock up the party's presidential nomination with a win in South Carolina.

Romney strove to deflect attacks from Gingrich that he built his vast fortune while firing workers, saying he expected such jibes from Obama, not fellow Republicans -- traditionally the party of business.

"I know we're going to get hit hard from President Obama, but we're going to stuff it down his throat and point out (that) it is capitalism and freedom that makes America strong," Romney said.

Gingrich charged that the approach of Romney's Bain Capital firm was to "take over a company and dramatically leverage it, leave it with a great deal of debt, (make) it less likely to survive."

Santorum, a Christian conservative, joined in, saying Republicans must help "working men and women of this country who are out there paddling alone."

Romney struggled with an audience member's question about when he would make public his tax filings -- as is customary for presidential contenders -- days after he revealed he paid 15 percent of his income to the government.

"I'll release my returns in April and probably for other years as well," he said, describing himself as "someone who's lived in the real streets of America."

Romney, who has insisted he is the most electable Republican even as his once robust lead here has dwindled, happily trained his fire on the Democratic incumbent he hopes to take on in November.

"This president is the biggest impediment to job growth in this country. And we have to replace Barack Obama to get America working again," he said.

Romney, the party establishment's favorite and the off-again, on-again frontrunner over the past year, hoped a convincing win here would let him wrap up the nomination.

But he faced several setbacks on Thursday: Texas Governor Rick Perry dropped out of the race and endorsed Gingrich, raising the prospect that fragmented conservatives could rally around a single alternative to Romney.

And Iowa authorities rescinded Romney's eight-vote victory in the heartland state's first-in-the-nation caucus and declared that the winner was Santorum, whose campaign said Romney's air of inevitability had been "destroyed."

Santorum meanwhile assailed Gingrich as a dangerously erratic leader and blasted Romney over his health care plan in Massachusetts, which Obama has called an inspiration for his own national overhaul -- reviled by Republicans.

Romney worked to deflate Gingrich's claims that he was a key partner of conservative icon Ronald Reagan, saying: "I looked at the Reagan diary. You're mentioned once."

There were no questions about foreign policy, but Paul -- a champion of small government -- called for saving taxpayer dollars by ending troop commitments in Europe and east Asia that date back to World War II.

The candidates still in the race after South Carolina will face off again in Florida, a vote-rich battleground that holds its primary January 31.

AFP