DOUGH BOY: Mitt Romney, at Fox studios here yesterday, raised $2 million in a one-day fund-raising sweep, (AP)

WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has raised a stunning $10 million in the New York region so far — just as the campaign has begun blasting Newt Gingrich to try to close a gap in the polls.

The Romney camp announced the unrivaled cash haul — which equals almost a third of all the money his campaign has raised — at a private fund-raising breakfast at Cipriani yesterday morning, with about 700 people in attendance.

The campaign raised about $2 million in six events in New York yesterday, including a luncheon at the Waldorf-Astoria.

“New York is the place where you come as a candidate to get money,” said Jets owner Woody Johnson, a top Romney backer.

But Romney also suffered some setbacks yesterday, as it was revealed he has occasionally used the slogan “Keep America American” in speeches — even though the phrase has its origins in the Ku Klux Klan.

In other fast-moving developments in the fight for the GOP nomination:

* A new Romney Web ad called Gingrich an “unreliable leader” and ripped the former House speaker for appearing in a TV ad with Nancy Pelosi to fight global warming.

* Romney told Fox News that Gingrich’s comments slamming Romney’s work at Bain Capital “bespeaks an extraordinary lack of understanding about how the economy works.”

* Failed GOP Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell, who endorsed Romney, didn’t do him any favors when she told CNN of his flip-flopping: “That’s one of the things that I like about him — because he’s been consistent since he changed his mind.”

* Gingrich faced Occupy Wall Street-affiliated protesters at a campaign event in Iowa City, where one angry questioner said he had a “Ph.D. in cheating on your wife.”

* A new Pew poll showed Gingrich leading Romney 33 percent to 21 percent, while other polling showed a drop in Gingrich’s favorable ratings — a sign the attacks against him may be working.

Romney referred to Gingrich as “zany” in one pointed interview yesterday.

But Romney also got ridiculed in New York yesterday. Democrats hired a plane that flew up and down the Hudson River, mocking his offer of a $10,000 bet during a debate last weekend.

The plane carried a sign that said, “Bet You 10K Romney’s Out of Touch.”

A Democratic spokesman said the wager offer showed Romney was “tone-deaf.”

Romney told Sean Hannity’s radio show he doesn’t know why Gingrich referenced the bet in a sharp attack Tuesday, “given a $500,000 bill at Tiffany’s” — a reference to the charge account Gingrich had there.