As Texas Gov. Rick Perry turned his attention away from politics to the wildfires blazing across Texas, his campaign team was quick to attack Mitt Romney’s gubernatorial record along with his jobs plan released Tuesday in Las Vegas.

“As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney failed to create a pro-jobs environment and failed to institute many of the reforms he now claims to support,” Perry’s spokesman, Mark Miner, said in a statement.

“Among all the candidates for president, Gov. Rick Perry has the strongest record of creating a climate of job creation by limiting taxes, burdensome regulations and the size and scope of government,” Miner said. “Gov. Perry’s conservative leadership helped Texans create 40 percent of all the net new jobs created in America since June 2009. While President Obama has failed our economy, Gov. Perry has the strongest pro-jobs record and best philosophy to get America working again.”

Perry and Romney will meet for the first time Wednesday as they join the other Republican candidates for a debate in Simi Valley, Calif. The Texas governor went after Romney’s job creation record in South Carolina Monday before canceling events in the Palmetto State to attend to the wildfire response in Texas.

“There is no one going to be sitting on that stage who has the record of job creation that I have,” Perry said at the town hall meeting of  Rep. Tim Scott,  R-S.C.,  in Conway, S.C., Monday morning. “There’s going to be some that get up and say, ‘Well, I’ve created jobs,’ and that’s true. There’s one in particular who’s created jobs all over the world, but while he was the governor of Massachusetts, he didn’t create very many jobs.”

Perry overtook Romney’s frontrunner status in polls held during  the past week.  A new ABC News/Washington Post poll found Perry leading the Republican field at 29 percent, compared with Romney at 25 percent, among  Republican -leaning voters.