Most Utahns already have decided they want GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney to win the White House in 2008 — now it's time for the rest of the country to make a choice.

Starting Thursday in Iowa, voters nationwide will begin gathering in caucuses and going to the polls to select the Republican and Democratic nominees for president who'll appear on the November 2008 ballot.

For Romney, the results of GOP elections in just three states — Iowa's caucus Thursday, New Hampshire's primary on Jan. 8 and South Carolina's primary on Jan. 19 — could determine his political fate.

Iowa and New Hampshire, traditionally the first states to vote, are where candidates see their campaigns either surge or sputter. South Carolina, the first Southern state up, is a test of a candidate's ability to attract the region's evangelical Christian voters.

Romney has campaigned hard in Iowa and New Hampshire, and he has courted votes in South Carolina, too, knowing that a dismal finish there could raise new concerns about the political impact of his membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

One at a time

Even so, Romney's campaign is careful not to portray any race as a must-win.

"Nothing is certain in politics," Romney's national political director Carl Forti told the Deseret Morning News. "This is one contest at a time. There's a lot of room for redemption, so don't read too much into what happens in the early states."

Romney has outspent his competition in the hopes of winning both Iowa and New Hampshire and establishing the momentum needed to stay in a race that may not be settled until the Republican National Convention in September.

Now, though, Forti said Romney just needs to win either Iowa or New Hampshire.

Which one? "I don't think it matters," he said. "A win's a win."

As for South Carolina, Forti says the only goal there is "to exceed expectations." He's even hesitant to predict a win in Michigan's Jan. 15 primary, even though Romney's a favorite there because his late father, George, served as governor and he was raised there.

Political science professors interviewed by the Deseret Morning News said Romney still can win the GOP nomination even if he loses Iowa. Or New Hampshire. But, like Romney's own strategists, they say he needs a first-place finish in at least one of the early voting states.

"If he loses both Iowa and New Hampshire, he runs the risk of being discounted," said Jeffrey M. Berry, a political science professor at Tufts University in Boston. The real test for Romney, though, may not be until Feb. 5, the so-called "Super-Duper Tuesday."