Ron Paul wins few votes from Mormons in Nevada

By Shira Schoenberg, Globe Correspondent

Before Saturday’s Nevada caucuses, Texas Representative Ron Paul tried to make inroads with the state’s Mormon voters. It didn’t matter.

According to an analysis of the Nevada results by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, based on exit polls, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s support among Mormons dropped slightly between 2008 and 2012 – from 95 percent to 88 percent. That remains an overwhelming amount of support for Romney, a former leader in the Mormon Church. Around one quarter of caucusgoers were Mormon.

Romney won the Nevada caucuses with 50 percent of the vote, followed by Newt Gingrich with 21.1 percent, Ron Paul with 18.7 percent, and Rick Santorum with 9.9 percent.

The Globe reported that Paul had been reaching out to Mormon voters. And Paul did come in second among Mormons – but with just 5 percent of the vote, up from 3 percent in 2008.

In fact, the results showed that Paul would do well to keep religion out of his politics. Paul did best among religiously unaffiliated voters, winning 54 percent of that group. (Paul won among non-religious voters in 2008 as well, when he came in second overall.)

For Romney, the most significant takeaway is that he is continuing to struggle to get widespread support from evangelical voters. His margin of victory among non-evangelicals was twice as large as his margin of victory among evangelicals. Polls have found that evangelical voters tend to be wary of Romney’s Mormon faith.

Shira Schoenberg can be reached at sschoenberg@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @shiraschoenberg.