- The Monday night debate is the first of two in Florida this week
- Surging conservative Newt Gingrich hopes to continue his strong debate performances
- Mitt Romney increases attacks on Gingrich prior to the debate
(CNN) -- In the topsy-turvy world of the Republican presidential race, Newt Gingrich takes the stage as the surging conservative Monday night for the first of two debates in Florida before the state's high-stakes primary on January 31.
Coming off a solid victory in South Carolina, Gingrich has cut the lead held by early front-runner Mitt Romney in the Sunshine State and also caught the former Massachusetts governor in a national poll released Monday.
Now Gingrich will try to build on strong debate performances last week to continue his rise, while Romney increased his attacks against the former House Speaker prior to Monday's debate, sponsored by NBC News, the National Journal, the Tampa Tribune and the Florida Council of 100 at the University of South Florida in Tampa.
Also taking part in the debate will be former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, who is vying with Gingrich for conservative support, and libertarian champion Rep. Ron Paul of Texas.
With the first three contests of the nominating process producing three different winners -- Santorum in Iowa, Romney in New Hampshire and Gingrich in South Carolina -- Florida is a key battleground and offers a different campaign landscape.
The number of Florida Republican voters exceeds the combined total in the previous three states, requiring a larger campaign organization and more money to buy advertising. Romney got a head start in the state over his rivals, and also is expected to receive a boost from early voting permitted in Florida.
According to the state, at least 53,000 ballots have been cast in early voting that started statewide on Saturday, and 475,000 people requested and were sent absentee ballots, with 180,000 filled out and sent back by last Wednesday.
Those absentee votes came in before Gingrich skyrocketed in the polls and won South Carolina's primary by a double-digit margin.
Overall, nearly 1.95 million people voted in the 2008 Florida GOP primary.
According to the latest results from Gallup's daily tracking poll, Gingrich is in a statistical tie with Romney nationally among registered Republicans.
The national poll showed Romney at 29% and Gingrich at 28%. After the New Hampshire primary earlier this month, Romney was at 37% support and Gingrich at 14% in the same poll.
Monday's poll results showed Paul at 13% and Santorum at 11%. The sampling error was plus-or-minus three percentage points.
Paul will take part in Monday's debate but otherwise is not spending much money or time in Florida.
With little chance of winning, Paul chose not to compete in state where first place gets all the delegates. Instead, Paul is focusing on upcoming caucuses in Nevada, Colorado and Minnesota.
Prior to Monday's Florida debate, Romney ramped up his criticism of Gingrich, labeling him a Washington insider lobbyist, questioning his leadership, and demanding he release records tied to both a previous ethics investigation and work done for housing giant Freddie Mac.
Romney also demanded Gingrich return roughly $1.6 million earned from a contract with Freddie Mac, and ridiculed Gingrich's insistence that the work amounted to little more than "strategic" advice, as opposed to lobbying.
Earlier in the day, Gingrich said he had asked his former company, the Center for Health Transformation, to release the details of its consulting contract with Freddie Mac.
The latest maneuvering occurred against the backdrop of a GOP nomination fight that has changed dramatically over the course of the past week.
Initially announced as the victor in the January 3 Iowa caucuses by eight votes over Santorum, Romney learned Thursday that certified results showed Santorum actually won the state by 34 votes. Then came Gingrich's solid victory Saturday in South Carolina, in a race that Romney had led until his uncertain handling of whether to release his tax returns and a pair of debates widely considered to have been won dominated by the former speaker.
Santorum, appearing Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union," said the South Carolina results dealt a serious blow to any notion that Romney is the inevitable Republican nominee.
For his part, Gingrich on Sunday dismissed Romney's continuing critique of Gingrich's previous ethics controversy. The former speaker characterized a $300,000 penalty leveled by the House Ethics Committee in the late 1990s as reimbursement for the cost of the investigation.
He also claimed that he persuaded fellow Republicans in the House of Representatives to vote "yes" on the ethics charges against him in order to put a swift end to the proceedings.
According to the nonpartisan fact check group PolitiFact, Gingrich was reprimanded by the House and ordered to pay the $300,000 penalty in 1997 for violating an ethics rule. It noted that the penalty was considered reimbursement for the investigation.
The violation originated in a course Gingrich taught at Kennesaw State College, which organizers claimed qualified for tax-exempt status, PolitiFact reported. The House Ethics Committee ultimately concluded the course was run to "help in achieving a partisan, political goal," making it ineligible for tax exemption, according to PolitiFact.
Central to the 1997 investigation was a letter submitted by Gingrich's lawyers, which the ethics panel deemed inaccurate. Gingrich conceded Sunday the letter was a mistake.
CNN's Paul Steinhauser and Ashley Killough contributed to this report.
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