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Posted: 12:01 PM- SALT LAKE CITY -- Mitt Romney's withdrawal from the presidential race Thursday caught some of his most devoted supporters by surprise and disappointed many who hoped the nation would elect its first Mormon president.

Romney, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints like 60 percent of the Utah's residents, had raised more than $5.2 million here and won the state's primary on Tuesday with almost 90 percent of the Republican vote.

"I'm very disappointed," said state Senate President John Valentine, R-Orem. "Of course I wanted him to go all the way. But what I view him doing is that he's withdrawing now for the benefit of the party."

With the notable exception of popular Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman, who endorsed Arizona Sen. John McCain, nearly every Republican politician in the state backed Romney.

"There'll be a fairly strong sense of disappointment," said University of Utah political scientist Matthew Burbank. "John McCain, for whatever set of reasons, has never been all that popular with Utah voters."

Exit poll data from Tuesday's primary elections showed Utah Republican voters cared more about presidential candidates' personal qualities than their positions on issues, the opposite of the national trend in Super Tuesday voting.

Many Utah voters said they trusted Romney on economic issues. He is widely praised here for running the profitable 2002 Salt Lake Winter Olympics.

In most Super Tuesday states, Republican voters said they thought Romney was only slightly better equipped to manage the economy than front-runner John McCain. But in Utah, nine out of 10 GOP voters said they would trust Romney most with the nation's finances.

Burbank said there's little question Republicans here will come around to support McCain in a general election. Utah is one of the nation's most conservative states, and President Bush won re-election in 2004 with 72 percent of the vote.