WASHINGTON — If expert predictions and opinions come true, Mitt Romney may have to come up with another analogy after the South Carolina primary results are totaled tonight.

There is no Olympic medal for fourth place.

Romney, who ran the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, has equated his past primary performances to silver medals in New Hampshire and Iowa where he took second place, and gold medals from Wyoming and Michigan. So far South Carolina may be his first bronze — or no medal at all — of the campaign season.

It depends who turns out to vote.

The former Massachusetts governor seems to realize his chances of getting to the imaginary awards podium for first southern state primary being held today are slim. Despite visiting the state repeatedly throughout 2007, Romney chose to only campaign in the Palmetto State on Wednesday and part of Thursday leading up to the primary. Instead, he headed west to shore up support in Nevada, where the Republican Caucus is also taking place today. He will spend most of today in Florida, where voters go to the polls on Jan. 29.

Since the 2008 presidential nomination process began in earnest last year, South Carolina had been deemed as an important test for Romney because of its high number of evangelical Christian voters. Romney is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and many evangelicals don't view Mormons as fellow Christians.

But that was before former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, an ordained minister, emerged as a viable GOP candidate by virtue of his win in the Iowa Caucus, explained Paul Peterson, political science professor at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, S.C.

Peterson predicted Huckabee would finish higher than Romney, but a vote for Huckabee is not necessarily a vote just against the Mormon candidate as much as a vote in favor of Huckabee outright. It would not surprise him if Romney finished fourth.

Dan Gilgoff, politics editor at Beliefnet.com, who is in South Carolina, said a lot of the voters he has talked to have said Romney's faith is one of the factors in deciding to not support him. But Gilgoff, who also is the analyst behind the God-O-Meter, in collaboration with Time Magazine, said Romney will not lose the evangelical vote there entirely.

A more positive potential scenario for Romney comes from Blease Graham, a political science professor at the University of South Carolina. He said Romney might do better than expected.

"I don't think the Mormonism is as much an issue as the sensationalists would want it to be," Blease said. "A 'fringe' may doodle horns on Romney's picture, but it is a peripheral issue."