10:11 p.m. | Updated A revised version of this post is available here.
Mitt Romney has said it every way he can: He is not releasing any more of his tax returns.
Mr. Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, is facing millions of dollars in searing ads from President Obama and a rising chorus of puzzled Republicans, all urging him to reveal more of his financial history.
But with each answer he gives, Mr. Romney seems more determined than ever that voters will not see any of his tax history before 2010.
“In the political environment that exists today, the opposition research of the Obama campaign is looking for anything they can use to distract from the failure of the president to reignite our economy,” Mr. Romney told National Review on Tuesday, explaining his opposition to a broader release of his personal tax data.
“I’m simply not enthusiastic about giving them hundreds or thousands of more pages to pick through, distort and lie about,” he said.
That follows an equally emphatic statement last Friday, when Mr. Romney brushed aside calls for him to make public more than the 2010 returns he has released and the 2011 documents he has said are coming soon.
“Those are the two years people are going to have, and that’s all that’s necessary for people to understand something about my finances,” Mr. Romney said in an interview on CNN.
The definitive nature of Mr. Romney’s statements appears to have all but shut down any public contemplation from his close advisers that he might reconsider. Kevin Madden, a senior adviser to Mr. Romney, declined to talk about internal discussions on the issue, but made clear who was in charge.
“I would point you to the governor’s statements,” Mr. Madden said. “That guides the campaign’s position.”
Another senior adviser to the campaign said Wednesday that he had “heard of no division in the inner circle on this.”
“He is determined not to release more, and they support him,” the adviser said of Mr. Romney and his aides. “Plus, there is no evidence that voters care about this. They think they know enough about Mitt Romney’s finances.”
But that answer has not satisfied a growing number of Republicans who have said that Mr. Romney’s refusal to release more of his tax returns threatens to do him lasting political damage as he nears the final stage of the presidential campaign.
On Tuesday, the editors of National Review wrote that the Republican campaign was “playing into the president’s hands” by refusing to release the tax returns. They predicted that Mr. Romney would eventually have to cave in to the demands.
“The only question is whether he releases more returns now, or later — after playing more defense on the issue and sustaining more hits,” they wrote. “There will surely be a press feeding frenzy over new returns, but better to weather it in the middle of July.”
In the last several days, similar calls have come from Republican pundits and governors, and from some of Mr. Romney’s former rivals for the party’s nomination.
“Politically, I think that would help him,” Representative Ron Paul of Texas told Politico. “In the scheme of things politically, you know, it looks like releasing tax returns is what the people want.”
George Will, the conservative commentator, said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that Mr. Romney should release more tax returns quickly.
“If something’s going to come out, get it out in a hurry,” Mr. Will said. “I do not know why, given that Mitt Romney knew the day that McCain lost in 2008 that he was going to run for president again that he didn’t get all of this out and tidy up some of his offshore accounts and all the rest.”
Mr. Romney’s hard-and-fast refusals have also energized the Democratic attacks. Mr. Obama’s Chicago-based campaign is continuing to hammer him with new television ads, web videos and commentary from surrogates.
The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday released a video making fun of Mr. Romney by juxtaposing his statements on his tax returns with images of a man in a top hat doing a horse ballet.
“Do we really want a president who dances around the issues?” the video asks.
The horse featured in the video is Rafalca, and is owned by Ann Romney, who took some offense to the video in an appearance on ABC on Wednesday. By late Wednesday, the D.N.C. apologized and said it would no longer use the horse in videos or ads.
“Our use of the Romneys’ dressage horse was not meant to offend Mrs. Romney in any way, and we regret it if it did,” said Brad Woodhouse, the communications director for the D.N.C. “We were simply making a point about Governor Romney’s failure to give straight answers on a variety of issues in this race. We have no plans to invoke the horse any further to avoid misinterpretation.”
Mr. Woodhouse said the existing video, and a second similar one also released earlier Wednesday, will remain available online.
A television ad by Mr. Obama’s campaign went up in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, just as Mr. Romney held an event in the state. Titled “Makes you Wonder,” the ad raises the possibilities that Mr. Romney has additional overseas tax havens that would be revealed by releasing his tax returns.
“Makes you wonder if some years he paid any taxes at all,” the ad says. “We don’t know because Romney has released just one full year of his tax returns.”
Mr. Romney’s campaign has sought to change the subject, accusing the Democrats of going on the attack because of what they say are the failed economic policies of Mr. Obama’s administration.
Mr. Madden said that Mr. Romney had disclosed personal financial information “beyond what the law requires” and said that should be enough.
“What’s important to voters is the state of the economy and who’s going to fix it,” he said. “What they really want is a focus on the issues. That’s where the governor is focused.”
