According to a new Gallup / USA Today poll, 40 percent of adults say that President Obama's stance on same-sex marriage will affect their vote. Those that are affected were twice as likely to say it will make them "less likely" to vote for Obama.
It's telling that roughly half of that group identifies as Republican, and were not actually likely to actually support Obama anyway. Unsurprisingly, among Democrats the numbers swing the other way -- 24 percent said they were "more likely" to vote for Obama, while 10 percent said they were "less likely." A separate question asked voters whether they approved with Obama's stance on gay marriage and a slight majority (51 percent) said that they did, with 45 percent saying they disapproved.
However, among the heavily-courted independents, 23 percent said they were less likely to vote for Obama given his support of same-sex marriage, while only 11 percent were "more likely." It seems that while Obama may be with the majority of Americans on this issue, those who are opposed to same-sex marriage are more likely to let the issue swing their vote.
Gallup analyst Jeffrey Jones wrote that the poll shows an overall "net minus" for Obama, but he also had this to say about the results: "It is important to note that the poll's results give a sense of Americans' immediate reactions to Obama's position. It is possible that the impact of Obama's same-sex marriage position will ultimately be greater or lesser, depending on the attention paid to the same-sex marriage issue during the duration of the presidential campaign."
