In a new poll, a higher percentage of likely 2016 voters felt favorably toward gays and lesbians than evangelical Christians.

The poll, entitled “Victory in Sight,” looks at the growing social acceptance of same-sex marriage even among older voters, Catholics, non-college educated voters and Republicans – groups not traditionally associated with favoring gay rights. The poll was commissioned by gay rights group, the Human Rights Campaign, and conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, a Democratic polling company.

[OPINION: How Did Public Opinion on Gay Marriage Shift so Quickly?]

In it, 53 percent of respondents held a favorable view of gay people, while 42 percent held a favorable view of evangelical Christians. Meanwhile, 18 percent of the likely voters surveyed held an unfavorable view of gay people, while 28 percent held a negative view of evangelical Christians. Interestingly, the popularity of evangelical Christians mirrors the favorables and unfavorables of gay people in 2011, when 40 percent of those polled felt positively about gays and lesbians and 25 percent held a negative view. There was no comparison polling released on how the electorate felt about evangelicals three years before.

Other interesting tidbits from the poll, which was introduced at a Washington breakfast briefing Thursday, include that, on average, about one-third of identified Republicans, Republican primary voters, conservatives and Mitt Romney voters, favor gay marriage. Younger members of the Republican base are driving that trend. When evangelicals, for instance, were asked if they favored or opposed gay marriage, only 19 percent of those older than 50 favored same-sex unions, but 45 percent of the 18- to 29-year-old set did.

The study of 1,000 likely 2016 voters was conducted March 9 through March 16 with a margin of error of 3.1 percent. The pollster over sampled likely voters under 30 and reached 38 percent of respondents by cellphone in an effort to accurately sample the full American electorate, the study said.

