Mitt Romney’s Mormon Religion Is Unknown To Most Americans, According To New Survey

Despite the increased attention to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Mormon religion, a new survey released Thursday shows that a majority of Americans cannot identify the former Massachusetts governor’s religion.

The survey by Washington, D.C.-based Public Religion Research Institute found that only four-in-10 Americans know that Romney is Mormon. The figure has not changed since July, when the research and polling organization last conducted a survey on Americans’ knowledge of the candidate’s religion.

That lack of change contrasts with the increasingly heated conversation over whether a largely Protestant nation is uneasy with a Mormon president. The issue, which has long haunted Romney’s presidential aspirations, was reignited last month after a popular Texas minister and prominent supporter of Texas Gov. Rick Perry called Mormonism a “cult.”

While the new survey did not find an overall change in knowledge about Romney’s religion, it did find that more white evangelical Protestants can identify Romney as Mormon — 53 percent of white evangelical Protestants said Romney is Mormon, up 9 percentage points since July.

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