"I think we did a good job of competing for support from evangelicals," Romney spokesman Kevin Madden told reporters. "But I think the results will show that there were some folks there that are evangelical voters that identify with Mike Huckabee, and he did very well with them."

But, Madden said, Romney does not need to change the way he addresses Mormonism. He called last month's speech on religion and faith by Romney in College Station, Texas, "a defining moment for him in how he addressed the issue. I think he did so with a certain degree of finality ... I think we've answered a lot of the questions. ... I would disagree with any assessment this was about denomination."

Bennett said it was hard to tell how much impact Romney's religion had on the vote. "Iowa is a very congenial state for a professional preacher," Bennett said, adding that he did not believe Huckabee had the strength to continue winning.

Earlier in the day, Tim Albrecht, Romney's Iowa press secretary, downplayed the issue. "We're not running into the anti-Mormon sentiment," he said. "We're not finding it to be a big issue. We've made thousands of voter contacts."

Evangelicals make up as many as half the Republicans who turned out to vote in Thursday's GOP caucuses.

Steve Scheffler, president of the Iowa Christian Alliance, said evangelicals aren't automatically Huckabee supporters, however.

"Romney's an attraction to this base, too. Maybe not to the degree that Huckabee is, but he's certainly got some support," Scheffler said. Romney's Mormon faith "certainly is an issue with some people but not as big as you might think."

But Jack Cline, a retired homebuilder from Waukee, said Romney's religion probably cost him some votes." I'm sure it had some negative effect, but I think he's handled it well. He's not like Huckabee who comes on as a Christian conservative. I'm not sure that goes over well with everybody."

Cline and his wife, Sue, were among the hundreds of caucusgoers packed into Waukee High School, one of several caucus sites visited by Romney as voters gathered at high schools and other community centers to register their preferences

Huckabee supporter Adam Lentz, 20, of Waukee, suggested Romney's religion isn't the only reason some voters don't like him. "That could have something to do with it," Lentz said, noting that a bigger problem is the type of campaign Romney ran. "The truth is going to show you can only buy so many votes."

Romney kicked off his public campaign schedule Thursday with a visit to Iowa's Fortune 500 company, Principal Financial Group, in downtown Des Moines. Standing on an auditorium stage and holding a microphone, he wove in references to foreign policy into his standard stump speech, suggesting America faces becoming a second-tier economic and military power if it does not meet the challenges posed by unrest in the Muslim world and the emerging power of China.