Responding to a question by a Las Vegas pediatrician, Romney said despite numbers indicating that many evangelical Protestants are wary of supporting him because of his faith, some of those voters are backing him because their values align.

"The success I'm having in those states is coming in part because of evangelical Christians saying 'Look, we share values. You flow from the same Judeo-Christian philosophies that the rest of us flow from,' " Romney said.

Various polls have shown upward of 43 percent of voters surveyed would be less likely to vote for a Mormon, with that reluctance particularly strong among evangelical Protestants who see significant doctrinal differences between their faiths and Mormons'.

But Romney may have a point, according to Costas Panagopoulos, political science professor at Fordham University.

"To some extent, he's probably right," Panagopoulos said. "There's some segment of that electorate that would be attracted to Romney not because he's a Mormon or a member of some faith, just because his faith is an important aspect of his identity."

That segment would rather have a strongly religious candidate than one who isn't as religious.

Romney did not mention his faith in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during his main address to the group but took a few minutes during a question and answer portion to allay fears that his faith is out of line with mainstream religions.

"What is it about the the LDS faith that scares people so badly and is there some way to overcome that fear?" Leroy Bernstein, a Las Vegas doctor, asked Romney.

Romney has faced similar questions as he crisscrosses the nation in hopes of obtaining the GOP nomination and eventually the White House. Many of the questions have come from reporters, but voters, too, want to know. Bernstein, for example, said he has grown up in Las Vegas, which has a sizable number of Mormons, and would vote for a Mormon at the "drop of a hat" if the candidate was a good one.

Romney faces another test of how much his religion will play in the White House race when he speaks to the Values Voters Summit, a gathering of religious conservatives in Washington this Friday and Saturday. Romney is one of five speakers at the group's Friday dinner.