In Maryland and Wisconsin, Romney does just fine with evangelical and Catholic voters

For half a decade, we’ve been hearing that evangelicals just won’t vote for Mitt Romney because he’s Mormon. It’s one reason that the GOP frontrunner has kept his faith—and the Real Romney—on mute.

But it looks like the anti-Mormon vote might not be that big of a concern in the end. A study of voting in the Maryland and Wisconsin primaries by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that Romney basically split with Rick Santorum the white evangelical and born-again Christian voters:

In Maryland, 41% of evangelicals voted for Romney while 39% supported Santorum. In Wisconsin, 43% of evangelicals backed Santorum and 39% voted for Romney.

Romney also did a lot better among Protest and Catholic voters than Santorum. Notably, 47 percent of Catholics voted for the Mormon Romney while 35 percent of Catholics voted for the Catholic Santorum. And that is despite 59 percent of Wisconsin voters saying that it matters “a great deal” or “somewhat” that a candidate shares their religious beliefs. Six in 10 cheeseheads are not Mormons, so what explains this?