Poll shows Romney’s Mormon faith a problem in South Carolina

By Tom Baxter
Southern Political Report

(10/18/07) Forty-five percent of likely South Carolina Republican primary voters say they are less likely to vote for Mitt Romney next January because he is a Mormon, according to the latest InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion poll.

The poll, conducted Thursday night, made it clear that by calling attention to the former Massachusetts’ governor’s religion, the endorsement of Bob Jones III, chancellor of the fundamentalist Christian university in Greenville which bears his name, could have hurt Romney more than it helped him.

In the poll of 486 likely Republican primary voters, 27 percent of voters said the Jones endorsement made it more likely they would vote for Romney, while 32 percent said it made it less likely.

“It is starting to look like South Carolina might, for Romney, be the equivalent to West Virginia in John F. Kennedy's 1960 race for the Democratic nomination,” said InsiderAdvantage CEO Matt Towery.

In the 1960 race, West Virginia was viewed as a crucial test of how seriously his Roman Catholic faith affected Kennedy’s election chances. Kennedy won the West Virginia primary and went on to the presidency.

But Romney faces a stiff challenge in South Carolina. In an early October InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion poll, he was in third place behind Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani.

In an interview with the Greenville News earlier this week, Jones said he was endorsing Romney despite a difference over religious beliefs, because he viewed him as the Republican most likely to beat Hillary Clinton.

“What is the alternative, Hillary’s lack of religion or an erroneous religion?” said Jones, grandson of Bob Jones Sr., who started Bob Jones University as a Bible school with strictly conservative tenets.

“As a Christian I am completely opposed to the doctrines of Mormonism. But I’m not voting for a preacher. I’m voting for a president,” Jones said.

Three days later, 58 percent of those polled said they were aware of the endorsement, while 88 percent said they were aware of Romney’s Mormon faith.

The one-night poll was weighted for age and gender, and has a margin for error of plus or minus 5 percent.

Towery said the automated telephone system used for this poll is proving to be extremely accurate when dealing with questions which voters might be embarrassed to answer when talking with a live interviewer.

“In our experience, when dealing with sensitive issues such as religion, we find that our automated systems are proving to be much more reliable than the traditional telephone centers. Individuals are far more likely to disclose their true feelings in a more anonymous and mechanical-type poll than when talking to a phone back questioner,” Towery said