As
National Journal's
Beth Reinhard wrote on Monday, the issue of gay marriage is politically complicated for Obama because while young voters largely support it, African-Americans do not.
Indeed, many rural, heavily African-American counties that strongly supported Obama in the 2008 contest overwhelmingly backed the gay marriage ban. In Hertford County, which is over 60 percent African-American, Obama won 70 percent of the vote in 2008 but it voted heavily for Amendment 1 (3,817 yes votes; 1,627 no votes).
In Bertie County, the most African-American county in the state (over 62 percent), Obama garnered over 65 percent of the vote. But a whopping 73 percent of the county's voters supported the constitutional amendment.