Is Gay Marriage Hurting Obama Among Black Voters?

North Carolina could be a bellweather for other problems to come (from Morning Jolt):

The Mystery of Obama's Poll Drop among North Carolina African-Americans

So . . . how much stock should we put in this?

President Barack Obama is rapidly losing support among African-American voters in North Carolina, a new poll out today from the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling shows.

The poll finds that Mitt Romney would get 20 percent of the African-American vote if the election were held today, compared with 76 percent for Obama. Overall, Romney has a 48 percent to 46 percent lead on Obama in the crucial swing state.

Obama received 95 percent of the support from African-Americans in North Carolina in the 2008 election, compared with just 5 percent for Republican nominee John McCain.

One of PPP's analysts is a little wary:

Jim Williams, a polling analyst at PPP, said it could be "statistical noise" that comes with a small sample (only about 200 African-Americans were surveyed). But he said it was not something the agency has "ever seen before."

Survey USA had an 84 percent to 8 percent split in favor of Obama among African-Americans in their last poll, so this would be a jump . . . but not thatamazing.

In the Corner, Maggie Gallagher has a theory: "A lot of black pastors are pretty upset with President Obama for endorsing gay marriage (see the Coalition for African American Pastors), and it looks like some of their flocks are as well."

Black voters rejected gay marriage in California with a 70% vote in favor of Prop 8 in 2008. I think we can assume similar if not greater numbers in most other states, and given the large black population in North Carolina, this issue could certainly swing that state away from Obama. He narrowly won it in 2008 and can't afford to lose any part of his base.