News Analysis - For Romney, Challenges Await on Ideology and Faith - NYTimes.com MANCHESTER, N.H. - Mitt Romney has now defied a generation of political gravity, doing what no non-incumbent Republican has done since 1976, winning the one-two states of Iowa and New Hampshire in his quest for the party's presidential nomination. But on Wednesday, Mr. Romney's plane will deliver him to the tougher proving ground of South Carolina for what could be a crucial test. It will be there - a place famous for surfacing the dark undercurrents of American politics - that he has the opportunity to show he can overcome doubts among evangelicals and Tea Party adherents about his ideological commitment and assume leadership of a party that has spent the last two years under the sway of a conservative insurgency. If he succeeds, it will be a triumph of political rebranding, a long effort by Mr. Romney to leave behind a past that includes former support for abortion rights and authorship of a health care plan that helped inspire President Obama's. A Republican Party whose more energetic precincts have been gripped throughout the Obama presidency by a desire to expel moderates and upend the establishment will have put itself in the hands of a candidate who, more than anyone in the race, comes out of a moderate, establishment Republican tradition. But to get there - or get there without a protracted battle - he will have to fend off efforts by his rivals in South Carolina to emerge as the singular anti-Romney candidate. With little left to lose, Newt Gingrich and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas are already assailing him as a heartless job killer in South Carolina, a state hit far harder by the economic downturn than Iowa and New Hampshire were. But just fending off that attack may not be enough. He is also heading smack into an issue that has followed him through his national political career: his Mormon faith and the suspicion many evangelical Christians have of it. "It's going to be difficult for Romney as a Mormon with the evangelical community," said Franklin Graham, the evangelical leader, who is based in North Carolina. For most Christians, Mormonism is an issue and he has a hurdle here that he's going to have to jump over and navigate around if he can. But the barely hidden glee of the Romney campaign when Mr. Perry decided to stay in the race after performing badly in Iowa, to fight another day in South Carolina, betrayed another lucky factor that has helped give the Romney team confidence in the state: In the absence of a successful effort by any of his rivals to rally evangelical voters behind just one of them, the cast of candidates vying for the anti-Romney religious vote is promising to carve it up into smaller pieces. Mr. Perry made a point of appealing to evangelical voters with a giant prayer rally in Texas shortly before he announced his presidential campaign and has shown crosses in his advertisements; Mr. Gingrich, who is on his third marriage and third religion, has visited with pastors to ensure them of his new but deep Roman Catholicism and his apologies to God. And, now Rick Santorum is planning to campaign hard in the northern part of South Carolina because "that's where much of the evangelical vote is," said former Representative J. Gresham Barrett of South Carolina, a supporter and adviser. So it is with acute interest that Mr. Romney's aides are keeping their eye on a planned meeting of major evangelical leaders to be held this weekend in Texas, where there has been some talk of a move to coalesce around a single conservative alternative to Mr. Romney. Gary L. Bauer, president of American Values and one of the organizers, said Tuesday in an interview, "We're not forming some alliance to stop somebody else that's competing for the nomination," adding, "the only person in that room the people want to stop is Barack Obama from having a second term." Mr. Bauer, it happens, will be supporting Mr. Santorum, whom he endorsed and campaigned with last week. But Mr. Bauer said the meeting would include advocates "for all of the candidates, including Romney." Mr. Romney's advocates are expected to be working the room aggressively. Jennifer Steinhauer contributed reporting from Washington.