Nevada's caucuses offer Romney a chance for a third victory in his presidential bid while polls in South Carolina show Romney lining up third or fourth behind rival contenders.

The difference: Nevada is home to 170,000 LDS Church members, abuts Utah and doesn't have a large population of evangelical voters. South Carolina, on the other hand, has only 34,000 Mormons and is pure Bible Belt.

Likely minding the polls and his consultants' advice, Romney jetted out of South Carolina after a day of campaigning this week en route to Nevada, where he hopes to strike gold.

"He has a better chance in Nevada because there are more Mormons in Nevada than in South Carolina and probably less evangelicals in Nevada than in South Carolina," says Sen. Bob Bennett, a Utah Republican backing Romney. "You don't think of Nevada as a place where a Southern Baptist preacher would do all that well."

Indeed, a poll out Friday by the Las Vegas Review-Journal showed Romney leading Sen. John McCain 34 percent to 19 percent, with Mike Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, carrying 13 percent of those surveyed.

Romney has just one high-profile victory under his belt: Michigan. But with second-place showings in Iowa and New Hampshire, plus a win in Wyoming's caucuses, Romney is actually leading in the number of pledged delegates.

Unlike other candidates who have targeted specific states - think Rudy Giuliani and Florida - the former Massachusetts governor has set up shop in every state with a contest in January and is competitive in the polls.

Romney senior adviser Ron Kaufman said the campaign feels good about both South Carolina and Nevada, even though he acknowledged they are down in the South Carolina polls.

"We're the only candidate who's actually been to every state," Kaufman said. "We said from day one we'd be competitive everywhere, and we will be."

But Romney's message doesn't seem to be resonating in South Carolina, a state that every GOP nominee has won in recent times.

And voters aren't identifying with the candidate because of his campaign pitch, not because of Romney's Mormon faith, according to Blease Graham, a professor of political science at the University of South Carolina and an expert on Southern politics for more than 30 years.

"The Mormon thing has been talked about and written to boredom, for the lack of a better term," Graham says. "I really think it's the message of the candidate."

What happens in South Carolina won't be the same as what happens in Nevada either. Romney could pull more delegates from Nevada than are up for grabs in South Carolina. The Silver State has 34 delegates compared with the Palmetto State's 24.

tburr@sltrib.com

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* Reporter

MATT CANHAM contributed to this story.