A pro-Newt Gingrich super PAC is planning to start running its own negative commericals that "define" Mitt Romney in the next few days. signaling a potentially major escalation in the ad war that is dominating the Republican race.

Without even waiting for tonight's results in Iowa, Rick Tyler, an advisor to Winning Our Future-- the major Ginrich super PAC -- said his group will start hitting Romney on issues ranging from abortion to gun control in ads in South Carolina and possibly New Hampshire in the next few days. y.

"We're going to define Mitt Romney," Tyler told NBC News. "Seventy five per cent of our party does not want him."

Until now, while a pro-Romney super PAC bombarded the Iowa airwaves with attacks on Gingrich, Winning Our Future, has refrained from running attack ads out of deference to Gingrich's own publicly stated wishes. The former speaker had previously pledged to run a "positive" campaign and disavow any negative attacks by his supporters.

But Tyler said he is now taking his "cue" from more recent comments by Gingrich signaling that the candidate is now prepared to be more aggressive and sharpen his own criticism of Romney. In a television interview with CBS, Gingrich agreed that Romney was a "liar" by insisting that he knew nothing about the attack ads being run the super pac supporting him and that by pretending to be a conservative when he was really a "Massachusetts moderate."

Tyler said his group is planning ads that will criticize Romney for supporting "taxpayer funded abortions in Massachusetts, allowing a Planned Parenthood member to sit on a state health care commission and signing pro gun control laws.

One key question is whether Winning Our Future will have the funds to compete with Restore Our Future, the well-funded super PAC backing Romney. Tyler declined to discuss how much the group has raised, but confirmed that it was in communications with Sheldon Adelson, a billionaire Las Vegas casino magnate who has pumped more than $7 million into Gingrich's political organization in recent years.