Restore Our Future, the super PAC backing presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, spent more than $20 million on deceptive ads in early primary and caucus states, according to a just-released study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center. That figure includes more than $9 million in ads distorting the record of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is set to endorse Romney on Wednesday.

Relying on the spending estimates of commercial ad-tracking company Kantar Media CMAG and the content analysis of Annenberg's own  FactCheck.org, the center calculates that outside groups spent a total of $41.1 million through ...