As I expected, the New Hampshire primary resulted in Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, and Jon Huntsman (the Christian conservative candidates) beating Newt Gingrich (Christian conservative redefining himself as conservative Christian), Rick Santorum and Rick Perry (conservative Christians). This is in contrast to the caucus results in Iowa, a more evangelical state, where we saw the conservative Christians do better.

I think I’m on to something here. Let’s see if the pattern continues in South Carolina (Jan. 21) and Florida (Jan. 31). Romney probably has enough momentum at this point, and lack of a single strong challenger, to keep on winning. But without considering anything other than each candidate’s level of Jesus talk and the religious demographics of each state, then we should expect to keep seeing the rest of the pack shift around — with the conservative Christians ranking higher in evangelical South Carolina and the Christian conservatives (assuming they’re still in the race) back near the top in more diverse Florida. 

And for a little relevant fun, check out Beliefnet’s Politic-O-Matic quiz, designed to assess your beliefs and values in order to find out where they fall on the political party spectrum.

What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.