Will black voters give Obama what he needs in Southern swing states?

Meanwhile, in May, the president’s decision to openly back same-sex marriage drew cries of protest from conservative black Baptist churches and pastors in the South. While Obama’s change-of-heart had the effect of boosting support for gay marriage among blacks for the first time to above 50 percent, a poll by an anti-gay marriage group called Coalition of African-American Pastors suggested that 12 percent of previous black Obama supporters would not vote for him again.

'The danger of over-confidence'

Conversely, in Virginia, black leaders fear that black voters won’t turn out because of over-confidence in Obama’s shot at winning the presidency again.

“The polls show that we’re ahead, but I’m worried about the apathy in the African-American community,” Va. State Sen. Henry L. Marsh III told the Howard University News Service last week. “A lot of people are not coming to the rallies. If we don’t turn out, we still could lose Virginia. They assume the election is over.”

The Richmond Free Press, the largest black weekly in Virginia, raised similar concerns last week in an editorial titled “The danger of overconfidence,” which questioned Obama’s ability to energize black voters.

To be sure, black political experts say likely African-American voters will pull the lever for Obama, not Mitt Romney, while others, including Gene Demby on the Root website, suggest that “this hypothetical voter sit-out is not a real thing.”

“The best Republicans can hope for is that those black people who have figured it out and realize they’ve been had over four years, that they choose to stay home, because I don’t see them voting for Mitt Romney,” says Swain.

Apathy has even spread to some black intellectuals. “I’m going to vote for the other offices that are on the ballot, but I’m just not going to cast a vote for the presidency,” William Darity, an African-American studies professor at Duke University, in Durham, N.C., told “PBS NewsHour” this week, to the disbelief of the reporter doing the story. Mr. Darity's concern? "We're approaching the kinds of unemployment rates that existed in the United States at the height of the Great Depression in the African-American community in North Carolina."

To add to the campaign's worries, studies of voter registration figures indicate that Democrats are struggling to sign up new Obama voters in states across the country, including Virginia and Florida.

In part, that’s why Democrats have seized on tough new voter ID laws and voter roll purges in states like Florida, Texas, and South Carolina, accusing Republicans of trying to discourage Democratic constituencies, including blacks, from registering. There may be truth to that, but experts say at least part of that voter registration drop is also evidence of an enthusiasm gap among some black voters, with economic travails, potential over-confidence, and concern about gay marriage all playing a role.

Such issues ultimately “may not dampen support for the president but … may lessen turnout,” political communications expert Brad Bannon told Politico.

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