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ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) — Mitt Romney leads likely general election rival President Barack Obama among very religious voters, according to a recent survey.
The Gallup daily tracking poll released Wednesday showed the presumptive Republican presidential nominee beating Obama by 17 percentage points, 54 percent to 37 percent, among the most religious voters. Obama led Romney among moderately religious voters, 54 percent to 40 percent, and by 31 percentage points among nonreligious voters, 61 percent to 30 percent.
Religious Support
| Obama | Romney | |
|---|---|---|
| Very religious | 37% | 54% |
| Moderately religious | 54% | 40% |
| Nonreligious | 61% | 30% |
The poll classified very religious individuals as those who attended a church, synagogue or mosque at least every week or almost every week, a group that made up 41 percent of the registered voters questioned. The moderately religious category made up 27 percent of registered voters.
Nonreligious voters, for whom religion was not an important part of daily life and seldom or never attended religious services, made up 32 percent of those questioned by Gallup.
Obama is a Protestant Christian and Romney is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Despite Obama's religion, Protestants supported Romney over Obama by a five-point margin. Obama received the top spot among Catholics by six percentage points and held a substantial lead among Americans with no formal religious identity.
For the ongoing poll, Gallup surveys registered Republican voters on a daily basis, and the poll drops the oldest of five days each day and adds results from the most recent day of polling.
Pastor: Romney is Christian
Famed pastor Joel Osteen reiterated his position that Mitt Romney is a Christian.
Osteen said in an interview to air on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer" that as long as Romney believes that Jesus is the Son of God, then he subscribes to the Christian faith.
"Mormonism is a little different, but I still see them as brothers in Christ," Osteen said.
