WATCH: What Obama's Embarrassing Primaries

In Kentucky And Arkansas Last Month Mean



President Barack Obama is rapidly losing support among African-American voters in North Carolina, a new poll out today from the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling shows.

The poll finds that Mitt Romney would get 20 percent of the African-American vote if the election were held today, compared with 76 percent for Obama. Overall, Romney has a 48 percent to 46 percent lead on Obama in the crucial swing state.

Obama received 95 percent of the support from African-Americans in North Carolina in the 2008 election, compared with just 5 percent for Republican nominee John McCain.

In PPP's May poll, Obama received 87 percent of the African-American vote to Romney's 11 percent.

All of Obama's numbers with African-Americans are sliding. His approval rating is down from 86 percent to 77 percent. Romney's favorability, meanwhile, has doubled from 9 percent to 18 percent.

Jim Williams, a polling analyst at PPP, said it could be "statistical noise" that comes with a small sample (only about 200 African-Americans were surveyed). But he said it was not something the agency has "ever seen before."

"Seventy-something percent is obviously low," Williams told Business Insider. "It's not something we've ever seen before. It's definitely something we're going to monitor."

Williams added the obvious: If the results keep turning up like this, it would be "very bad news for him."

The decline in African-American support for Obama follows the general trend of voters in North Carolina. A month ago, Obama led Romney by a point. Two months ago, Obama led by 5 points. Romney has also swung the important Independent vote to his side — turning a 13-point deficit in April into a one-point lead in June.