WEST DES MOINES, Iowa – If a small army of Republican voters like Beverly McLinden were to troop unexpectedly to the GOP caucuses here early next month, Mitt Romney would be in great shape.

McLinden, a devout Baptist who rejects evolution, fits the profile of the evangelical conservatives now backing Mike Huckabee – a key bloc as Iowa prepares to host the first voting early next month in the battle for the Republican presidential nomination.

But McLinden, 52, said that while she is likely to support Romney, she expects a majority of her friends and acquaintances who share her religious faith will back Huckabee, a one-time Southern Baptist preacher.

“Whoever we nominate has to be able to battle Hillary and beat her,” said McLinden as she and her husband, Chris, awaited Romney in a hotel ballroom one evening last week with about 1,000 others.

“Mike Huckabee is a fine person, but I think if you are going to serve God, you serve God. Once he took his place on the national stage, I just don't know who he's serving – I'm not looking for a pastor in chief. I'm looking for a commander in chief.”

Evangelical conservatives are expected to constitute more than 40 percent of the Republican caucus-goers on Jan. 3. They have been a major factor in powering the former Arkansas governor past Romney in many Iowa polls and have helped lift him to the top tier of GOP presidential candidates nationally.

Their movement into the Huckabee camp is a big reason Romney now finds himself fighting to keep his presidential hopes alive in Iowa after months of running a textbook campaign rooted in his own formidable financial and personal assets.

There are other reasons Romney is struggling, some of which were on display as he campaigned across the state last week in a pre-holiday blitz before presidential candidates in both parties throttle back to avoid offending voters with aggressive stumping around Christmas.

After listening to Romney's campaign pitch at an early morning “Ask Mitt Anything” event at a country club in Indianola, Lanae Price, 37, said many public officials can't “relate” to the problems of middle-class families struggling with health care and skyrocketing gas prices.

“How are you going to be any different?” she asked.

Romney recited his successful push as governor for a law designed to make health care insurance affordable for all state residents.

Afterward, Price praised Romney's answer and said she may well support him. But she worried that his personal wealth accumulated during his business career would leave him tone deaf to the problems of ordinary Americans.

“It is something that concerns me,” she added.

Awaiting a similar event in Council Bluffs in an aircraft repair hangar at the local airport, Bryan Shea, a building contractor, complained about competing for jobs against unscrupulous competitors who cut costs by hiring illegal immigrants. A GOP precinct chairman in Crescent, Shea said his vote would go to the candidate with the toughest and most persuasive platform for solving the problem.

During his speech, Romney pledged to crack down on the hiring of illegal immigrants, to strengthen border security and to oppose an amnesty.

Afterward, Shea said he was leaning toward Romney but said he seemed to lack passion in the way he addressed the issue.

Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University, said in an interview that Romney suffers by comparison with Huckabee, whose years in the pulpit helped hone a folksy style that connects with voters. Goldford suggested what Romney says on the stump often sounds “canned.”

“Romney, at times, comes across as though he's briefing the board on the latest corporate venture even when he's trying to sound personable,” Goldford said. “He just can't get away from corporate-speak.”

Also, Romney's changing positions on social issues such as abortion – he is now opposed – have some questioning his core values.

The stakes in Iowa are huge given that Romney has bet his candidacy on back-to-back victories in the Iowa caucuses and the nation's first primary five days later in New Hampshire. He and his strategists hope that will generate irresistible momentum for subsequent contests in South Carolina and Florida leading up to the Feb. 5 showdown when large states stretching from California to New York hold primaries.

Some analysts say a loss to Huckabee in Iowa, particularly if it's by a substantial margin, could complicate Romney's prospects in New Hampshire despite leading in most polls there.

The consequences could be magnified by the David-and-Goliath nature of the campaign. Huckabee is being outspent on Iowa television ads by a nearly 10-to-1 ratio and counting on the intensity of his evangelical supporters to make up for the advantages of Romney's well-financed statewide organization.

Romney has responded to the threat by appealing to die-hard Republicans and sprinkling his recent speeches with praise for President Bush, a no-no until now for GOP candidates worried about general-election consequences of embracing an unpopular president.

He has also risked isolating an Iowa electorate said to dislike negative campaigning by airing ads attacking Huckabee's record as governor for supporting “taxpayer-funded scholarships for illegal aliens,” for abusing his pardon power and for favoring “reduced penalties for manufacturing methamphetamine.” His ads claim that his own record in Massachusetts on those scores is above reproach and conclude, “The difference is judgment.”

Huckabee on the one hand dismisses the attacks, but also suggests that they validate him as the man to beat.

Shea, the building contractor, said that he was familiar with the ads and that Huckabee's record on immigration “burns me up.”

In Indianola, Ted Hall, 58, a retired postal employee, said he liked that Romney was not “a career politician. He's a career business man.”

But Hall also said he was irritated by the ads – even though he is strongly inclined to back Romney.

“It kind of insults my intelligence. I am able to pick out the good parts of the candidate that I want,” Hall said. “It turns me off.”

Not far below the surface, Romney's Mormonism remains an issue that may cost him votes in Iowa and elsewhere.

“Among evangelical Christians there is a significant subset that doesn't necessarily consider Mormons as Christians,” said David Redlawsk, a pollster at the University of Iowa.

Redlawsk added that polling on the subject is inconclusive, in large part because voters are reluctant to admit to what might be construed as religious bigotry.

Experts and political professionals credit Romney with running a sound campaign and say his current difficulties are rooted in circumstances beyond his control – namely Huckabee's personal connection to voters and his natural appeal to evangelical conservatives who see him as one of their own.

“Romney has built his organization, and it's there,” said Chuck Laudner, executive director of the Iowa Republican Party. “Huckabee just took off. It was basically Huckabee was the one taking all those votes that were sitting in the void. That's half the battle. The (other) half of the battle is the turnout effort, and Romney certainly still has that. The question is whether Huckabee can match it.”