Poll: Florida's Black Voters Show Big Shift on Marriage

What a polling firm calls "the Obama effect" continues among black voters; this time, with a dramatic 48-point swing in Florida.

In September, Public Policy Polling found just 23% of Florida black voters supported marriage equality.  Now not only do black voters support marriage equality, they favor it by a wide margin, 49% to 31%. It wasn't enough, though, to turn the entire state in favor of marriage with voters as a whole still opposed 45% to 42%.

PPP has identified a national trend of support shifting at the state level. First in North Carolina, 44% of African-Americans supported either marriage or civil unions just before a vote in May on Amendment One. That number shot up to 55% with opposition also falling drastically just days after President Obama announced his support.

Then in Maryland PPP pollster Tom Jensen said the firm had found a “major shift in opinion” among African-American voters, who a poll in May showed support the state's marriage equality law by 55% to 36%. The numbers had essentially flipped since March.

The NAACP and a host of prominent black pop-culture figures have come out for marraige equality since, spurring on a conversation about a topic that had once remained largely untouched.