It’s easy to stereotype the American electorate, to make assumptions about which politicians should appeal to which voters. Oftentimes those assumptions are correct, but the Republican primaries have produced an intriguing case of when they’re not: Rick Santorum is losing the Catholic vote.

Santorum, a devout Roman Catholic, has lost that segment of the vote to Mitt Romney, a Mormon, in every state but one (Tennessee) where there are exit polls. Notably, that includes two big industrial states, Michigan and Ohio, where the two competed head-to-head. In Michigan, Romney won among Catholics 44 percent to 37 percent. In Ohio, his margin was even larger at 44-31 percent.