As you probably already know,a Mormon, Mitt Romney came out ahead in the Republican Party’s primaries in New Hampshire this week. He became the first non-incumbent to win Iowa and “the Granite State” since the modern primary process began in 1976.
Ron Paul finished second with about 23 percent of the vote.
The New York Times says South Carolina will provide a bigger test for Romney because of its many conservative evangelicals and ‘right wing’ Tea Partiers.
“For most Christians, Mormonism is an issue and he has a hurdle here that he’s going to have to jump over and navigate around if he can,” Franklin Graham told the NYT.
Romney actually won a plurality of evangelicals (30 percent) in N.H. Santorum came in second with 23 percent of the evangelical vote, but won just 8 percent of Catholics, in one of the more interesting entrance/exit poll findings.
Some politicos are already debating how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would influence a Romney presidency.
The Obama White House continued its election-year makeover, hiring an immigration expert with deep Catholic ties as its chief domestic policy guru. Earlier this week, Obama hired Jack Lew, a well-connected Orthodox Jew, as his chief of staff.
Latino evangelicals kickstarted a campaign to register young Latinos before the presidential election.