In the end, Mitt Romney couldn't overcome arithmetic. The seemingly inevitable yet still fragile GOP front-runner campaigned aggressively and spent heavily in Mississippi and Alabama, and he seemed poised to celebrate an upset in at least one of the twin Southern States. 

But winning in either, where exit polls reported Evangelicals accounted for roughly three-quarters of the vote, should always have been seen as improbable for a candidate who has continually failed to attract the party's religious wing. And, indeed, Born-Again Christians once again flocked to Romney's rivals.