Poll shows Obama with big lead in Calif.

President Barack Obama leads with comfortable margins among women, Latinos, independents and moderates in his re-election bid against presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney, according to a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll. Overall, 56 percent of the 1,002 registered Californian voters who were surveyed reported supporting Obama, while 37 percent said they supported Romney.

Despite Obama’s recent announcement that he supports same-sex marriage and Romney’s support for an amendment banning it, the results suggest that same-sex marriage will not be a key issue for voters when they cast their ballot in November.

According to the poll, 75 percent of respondents said that a candidate’s position on same-sex marriage would not be a major issue or would just be one of many factors when voting.

“President Obama’s support for same-sex marriage has attracted a huge amount of public and media attention, but it doesn’t appear that it has changed very many votes,” Dan Schnur, director of the Unruh Institute of Politics at USC and director of the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Poll, said in a statement.

Schnur said that a candidate’s position on the issue will serve more to motivate a parties’ base than to sway swing voters.

“Strong partisans on both sides of this issue may feel more intensely about Obama than they did previously, but same-sex marriage will be much more of a motivator for the two parties’ ideological bases than a persuader for swing voters,” Schnur said.

The poll also found that 51 percent of Romney supporters see their vote for the former Massachusetts governor as a vote against Obama. Forty-four percent of Romney supporters see their vote as a vote for Romney. These results suggest a lack of enthusiasm for Romney among Republican voters, according to a press release.