Santorum and the Catholic Vote

Rick Santorum would be the first Catholic Republican in the White House. But as an earlier post indicated, he lost the Michigan primary in part because he lost the Catholic vote.  The Pew Forum examines exit polls and finds that Michigan was not an aberration:

Exit polls in four of the Super Tuesday states asked voters about their religious affiliation (Protestant, Catholic, etc.). Romney, Santorum and Gingrich each won the Protestant vote in one state, while Protestants were evenly divided between Romney and Santorum in the fourth (Ohio). Catholics preferred Romney in two states (Massachusetts and Ohio) and were evenly divided in Georgia (between Romney and Gingrich) and Tennessee (between Romney and Santorum). Santorum, who has been Romney’s closest competitor in recent primaries and who is Catholic himself, has yet to achieve an outright victory among Catholics in any state for which data are available.