Updated at 1:45 p.m. ET -- After losing some 30 ballots on same-sex marriage across the country over the past decade, advocates of lesbian and gay couples are encouraged by polls showing they have a good chance of finally logging their first victory in a statewide popular vote.

Polls show majorities back same-sex marriage in Maryland, Washington and Maine, and they indicate a tight battle in Minnesota – the four states holding votes on the issue in November.

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“We’re feeling positive. The reality is, we haven’t won a ballot measure on marriage yet,” said Sarah Warbelow, state legislative director for the Human Rights Campaign, an advocacy group for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights. “I think it’s very reasonable and realistic to expect that we’ll win one or more of these ballot measures; certainly the polling suggests that all four are … a possibility.”

Polling ahead of such ballots has not always accurately captured voters’ sentiment: In California in 2008, the same-sex marriage camp had a majority, though the ban on gay and lesbian marriage ultimately prevailed. In North Carolina, polls had predicted a closer race in the May ballot on the constitutional amendment (a 16-point difference, according to Public Policy Polling at the time), but the anti-gay marriage camp won by more than 20 points.

“They’re doing what they’ve always done, taking their victory lap before their first victory,” said Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, which on Thursday gave $250,000 to each of the four state campaigns opposed to same-sex marriage.

“The poll numbers that they’re interpreting as good for them are actually not good for them,” he said Friday, though noting that Washington could be tough for his side.

So far, the polls show support in the low-to-mid 50s for same-sex marriage:

-- In Maine, 53 percent said they will vote to back the initiative to institute gay marriage, compared to 44 percent who are opposed, according to Public Policy Polling (PPP), a firm that works for Democratic candidates and progressive causes. The mid-September poll was not paid for or authorized by any campaign or political organization. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.5 percent.

-- In Maryland, 54 percent said they’ll back the state law that was passed by the legislature earlier this year, compared to 40 percent who are opposed, according to Hart Research Associates, which conducted the July 24-28 poll for Marylanders for Marriage Equality. The margin of error was plus or minus 4.5 percent.

-- In Minnesota, the vote was a virtual tie, according to Public Policy Polling’s Sept. 10-11 poll, which had 48 percent supporting the amendment to ban gay marriage, 47 percent opposed and 5 percent undecided. The poll was not paid for or authorized by any campaign or political organization. The margin of error for the overall survey was  plus or minus 3.4 percent.

-- In Washington, 56 percent of voters think the law legalizing same-sex marriage should be upheld, while 38 percent think it should be overturned, and 6 percent are not sure, according to a Sept. 7-9 SurveyUSA poll for KING-5 News in Seattle. The margin of error was plus or minor 4.3 percent.

Though the numbers appear to bode well for the same-sex marriage camp, they shouldn’t count on victory, Public Policy Polling said in its analysis of its Maine survey.

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“Our experience in polling gay marriage is that if people say they’re undecided it usually means they’re opposed to it,” said Dean Debnam, the firm’s president. “Despite the 8 point lead for passage this should be seen as a very close race.”

Gregory B. Lewis, a professor at Georgia State University who has researched public opinion on gay rights for nearly two decades, believes the same-sex marriage side could prevail in Maine and Washington, with Maryland and Minnesota too close to call.

“Since 2004, we’re seeing a strong upward trend, about 2 percentage points a year -- more people are saying that they favor same-sex marriage than said so the year before” nationwide, said Lewis, who is chair of the Department of Public Management and Policy at Georgia State University.

Part of the uptick has been due to young people who support same-sex marriage hitting vote age, but primarily it has been a matter of voters changing their minds, he said.

Warbelow, of the HRC, said that even if people told pollsters one thing and voted another way, victory was within reach for her side.

“The polling is much higher than it’s ever been,” she said. “We were not seeing these kinds of numbers in prior years.”

“We’re hoping for all four, but even one will really change the conversation in the United States,” she added.

Six states have same-sex marriage, led by Massachusetts in 2004, and followed by Connecticut, New York, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont plus the District of Columbia. A total of 38 states have either a state law or constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

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Half of Americans believe gay marriage should be legal, but nearly as many are opposed, the Gallup organization said Tuesday in releasing a new poll that it said underscores “just how divided the nation is on this issue.”

Fifty percent of Americans think same-sex marriage should be legal and bestow the same rights as traditional marriage, compared to 48 percent who don’t, according to the poll.

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Support for gay marriage fell slightly in the new Gallup poll from a record high of 53 percent in 2011 – the first time a majority of Americans favored gay marriage -- while opposition rose from 45 percent.

Smaller same-sex marriage battleground this year than in 2004

The poll, conducted May 3-6 of a random sample of 1,024 adults, had a maximum margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, Gallup said.

“This year's results underscore just how divided the nation is on this issue. As a result, President Barack Obama's campaign strategy team obviously is continuing to grapple with how to handle it -- with the vice president on the one hand essentially endorsing legalized gay marriage, while the administration on the other hand stops just short of the same pronouncement,” the poll said in a statement, referring to Vice President Joe Biden’s comments on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he was “absolutely comfortable” with gay marriage.

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The release of the poll came as North Carolina residents voted Tuesday on a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as being between a man and a woman and make marriage the only domestic legal union that would be valid in the state. Recent polls show the amendment passing. Thirty states already have constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage, while eight states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriage.

“We’re having a great debate about marriage in this country, and it’s not at all settled about which way we’re going to go,” said Thomas Peters, cultural director of the National Organization for Marriage, which supports the amendment. “Obviously … we believe that’s going to be settled one way.”

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In a NBC-Wall Street Journal poll released in March, Americans favored same-sex marriage by 49 percent to 40 percent. That marked  a reversal from October 2009, when opponents trumped supporters by 49 percent to 41 percent. Both women and black voters -- constituents that are strongly in Obama’s corner -- have moved in significant numbers to supporting gay marriage, that poll said.

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Gallup noted that “Obama's core constituency of Democrats strongly supports the issue, as do the majority of the important election group of independents. The president has said his view on the issue is ‘evolving,’ so it is possible he will eventually go on record as supporting gay marriage, but for now, he officially remains opposed.”

According to the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll, a key electoral group -- suburban voters -- narrowly favored gay marriage, 45 percent to 43 percent. Obama supported civil unions but opposed marriage for gay couples during the 2008 campaign.

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Paul Guequierre, a spokesman for Human Rights Campaign, which works on equal rights for the LGBT community, said the Gallup numbers were promising and he wasn’t sure that people were split as much as they once were.

“The news from Gallup today was very encouraging. It’s great to see that the American people are moving towards a position of support for LGBT equality. We’ve seen the numbers move in our favor for a number of years now, and to see the number over 50 percent is always encouraging,” Guequierre said. “It was just a few years ago, we were well below 50 percent, and we see the numbers moving in our direction.”

NBC's Domenico Montanaro contributed to this report

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Updated at 8:30 a.m. ET: North Carolina voters approved a constitutional amendment Tuesday night banning gay marriage, but the measure also goes one step further by not allowing civil unions.

The state becomes the last in the South to approve an anti-gay marriage amendment and joins 30 others with similar measures. Incomplete returns Tuesday night showed the amendment passing by 60 percent of the vote.

The amendment, also known as Amendment One, would make marriage the only legal domestic union valid in the state. Opponents said the measure was unnecessary because a state statute has banned gay marriage in North Carolina since 1996. They also argued that domestic partners – both straight and gay – and their children could lose health benefits under the amendment, but advocates for the new measure claim that will not happen.

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Making this a constitutional amendment was important, said Rachel Lee, a spokeswoman for Vote For Marriage NC, because “those statutes are vulnerable to the will of an activist judge or future legislature who could overturn the law with a single court ruling or by a single vote of the legislature.”

Lee watched the election results at a party in Raleigh with grassroots coordinators and coalition members. When it became clear the amendment had passed, they cut a vanilla wedding cake topped with a figurine of a bride and groom.

“If you looked at a map of our country, you saw North Carolina as the only one in the Southeast without an amendment preserving marriage between a man and a woman,” Lee said after the results had come in. “North Carolina had a target on her back.”

Half of Americans support gay marriage in new Gallup Poll

To overturn the amendment approved Tuesday night, the legislature would have to overrule the amendment by a three-fifths vote and get voter approval. Before the amendment passed, a judge or simple legislative majority could have overturned the 1996 statute banning gay marriage.

“This puts up a bigger barrier,” said John Dinan, a political science professor at Wake Forest University.

Dinan said the amendment was introduced after Republicans won a majority in both houses of the state legislature in 2010.

“It’s been a pretty easy win in every southern state,” Dinan said. “It never got to the ballot in North Carolina because Democratic legislatures never let it get there.”

Dinan said the amendment’s impacts would not be immediate.

“The one place it could make a difference is in eight or nine cities in North Carolina that give out insurance benefits to same-sex couples,” Dinan said. “Lawyers might have to start taking a real close look at those insurance benefits that are given out and they might have to change those.”

Melissa and Libby Hodges of Durham could be among those affected by the amendment. They worry their 5-year-old daughter may lose her health benefits, as she is covered by Libby, who cannot legally adopt her. By Tuesday afternoon, the moms had filled out paperwork for private insurance.

Jeremy Kennedy, campaign manager for Protect All NC Families, which was against the amendment, echoed the concern about health benefits for domestic partners, gay or straight. His group also is worried that victims of domestic violence may no longer be covered by statutes addressing that type of crime.

“We know the consequences that we’re listing, but there’s a whole bunch of unintended consequences that we probably haven’t even thought of yet that will come up in the courts after this,” Kennedy said.

Thomas Peters, cultural director of the National Organization for Marriage, which supports the amendment, said children of gay parents in other states where similar amendments have passed have not lost their health insurance. He said he doubts that would happen in North Carolina.

Lee said the amendment would “in no way impact domestic violence protections, child custody or end of life desires."  

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Voting began early Tuesday on the marriage amendment and candidate races in the 2012 primary, but 512,000 people – or 8 percent of registered voters – already had participated through absentee ballot, according to the State Board of Elections. That record turnout surpassed even the 2008 primary, which included Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the ballot, according to Democracy North Carolina.

Several high-profile figures – from former President Bill Clinton to evangelist Billy Graham – and national advocacy groups weighed in on the amendment.

“We’re having a great debate about marriage in this country, and it’s not at all settled about which way we’re going to go,” Peters said.

Before North Carolina's amendment passed, the last state to approve a constitutional amendment did so in 2008. Eight states and the District of Columbia allow same-sex marriage. 

Back in Durham, Libby and Melissa Hodges were debating whether to move to another state, where gay marriage would be legal.

They moved to North Carolina from Georgia in part because at the time, North Carolina allowed gay partners to adopt their children. That is no longer legal.

“My brother said, ‘If the amendment passes, North Carolina will be more backward than Georgia, will you move back to Georgia then?’” Melissa Hodges said. “I said, ‘You’re so wonderfully sweet, but no.’”

But leaving North Carolina would be hard. Both are city planners close to being vested in the state’s pension plan. Selling their home would be difficult, Melissa Hodges added, and their daughter was accepted into their first-choice kindergarten. Plus, another move would take her away from her brother, with whom she is close.

On Tuesday night, the Hodges watched the results online after putting their daughter to bed.

"She asked us before we put her to bed to make sure to tell her in the morning that we won," Melissa Hodges said. "She doesn't get the stuff with health insurance, but we told her that we'll always take care of her, not to worry about that."

Msnbc.com's Isolde Raftery contributed to this report.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Compared to “Occupy” protests on the coasts, the rebel encampment tucked between Tennessee’s War Memorial Plaza and the Statehouse – a few dozen tents adorned with American flags and even a libertarian one – has a decidedly Southern feel.

While protesters in New York, California and elsewhere may often pass their downtime playing drums, meditating or knitting, their Tennessee counterparts could be playing football, hosting a square dance, flying kites, skateboarding or welcoming opponents with cookies. 

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And if conversations on the coasts tend toward left-wing political theory, such as anarchy, Marxism and socialism, protesters here work on bridging a different divide: uniting the “blue” and “red” factions in their local audience.

"We do have a lot of conservative voices in this camp and the thing that is really appealing to all of us is we believe in the common ties that bind us,” said Samantha Blanchard, a 30-year-old office administrator who was sheltering in a tent as rain poured down on a frosty, grey Sunday afternoon. 

“This is a place where if people were really going to come together and form that 'purple' (combination of blue and red political affiliations) that everybody lusts for, it’s going to probably happen in this camp.” 

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While occupiers in several other cities have been forced to retreat, Nashville’s protest -- a core group of about 90 and a looser support network of 400 part-timers -- has survived two attempted evictions on Oct. 28-29.  Fifty-five people were arrested on misdemeanor charges of criminal trespassing that were eventually dismissed, said William P. York II, one of the attorneys who represented them. 

Among them was 64-year-old Bill Howell, regional organizer for the Tennesseans for Fair Taxation.

'I've been treated like a rock star'
Howell, who said he had never been arrested before, had planned for the moment, leading other protesters in a reading of the Declaration of Independence before he was taken into custody.

Reaction to the “Occupy Nashville” protest has been varied, he said, with “some people going by honking and hollering, ‘Get a job!’ and you know all the usual stuff. In my community, in some circles, I’ve been treated like a rock star,” he said chuckling, as a train horn blared in the background.

A preliminary injunction has allowed the camp to remain for now, but a status conference will be held with a federal judge on Feb. 3. However, protesters say “side attacks” have continued, with city inspectors warning about food preparation safety standards and the state attempting to deny them port-a-potties, which was revealed in emails obtained under Tennessee's open records law, said another one of the Occupy Nashville attorneys, William W. Hunt III.

But efforts to squelch the movement only served to fire up “couch occupiers,” said Jason Steen, 32, an office administrator.

“We had a good number of people here, but it suddenly turned into a First Amendment issue when Governor (Bill) Haslam started evicting everyone for curfew rights,” he said, estimating that the camp size has more than doubled to about 60 tents in the wake of the arrests.

Though Steen has a home, he spends most of his time at the camp and sometimes sleeps there.

“I just feel that strong about it because if we don’t have people down here for when all the legislators are in session and looking out their windows … what kind of impact are we going to have?”

One of those drawn in over First Amendment concerns was Jon Louis, who describes himself as a right-winger with some liberal social tendencies. He said he grew "irritated" as he watched state troopers arrest protesters.

Louis, who said some on the right have cast him as a “plant” in the movement while friends have taken to calling him a "hippie," noted that he does not agree with all of the views put forward at the camp and that it took him a while learning about it before he joined.  

"There’s some like minds here and there’s also, you know, a melting pot of different opinions," he said, noting he was “trying to get to the more right conservative South … mindsets and try to explain it to them, that we aren’t just a bunch of lefties (because) I’m most certainly not a lefty."

Three goals
Despite the range of political beliefs represented in the camp – and  Nashville’s reputation as a liberal bastion in the state -- the protesters have winnowed their “goals” down to three, which are printed on a blue index card and handed out to visitors. They are: ending corporate personhood, getting money out of politics and supporting Occupy Wall Street.

“It’s a lot more conservative here so we definitely have to tailor our approach and our message,” said Elli Whiteway, a 21-year-old college student. “… We kind of pride ourselves on being a common denominator movement … that’s been our approach, just trying to be, not exactly centrist, but applicable to both sides of the political spectrum.”

That approach hasn’t won over all conservatives.

The Vanderbilt College Republicans organized a protest at the camp on Nov. 3 – which the occupiers said they welcomed with cookies and open dialogue.

"We wanted to make known that not all the youths are with the movement, as is perceived by many. Their demands will do nothing but add to the burgeoning debt already on our shoulders," Stephen Siao, the group's president, wrote to msnbc.com in an email. "We think the Occupy Nashville movement is misguided -- they should be protesting at the White House, not at the State Capitol or Wall Street. It's this administration's policies that are prolonging this dreadful economy."

He also said that while Occupy Nashville "might have one or two members who claim to be conservative," the "core of conservatism is personal responsibility, and that is completely the opposite of their demands. We don't believe prosperity should be punished."

At a General Assembly meeting on Sunday, the protesters shivered, stamped their feet and huddled together to keep warm in 45-degree temperatures while outlining upcoming protests, addressing financial donations and discussing a planned two-day meeting of all the state’s occupations – about a dozen total from towns and cities – for this weekend.

On the sidelines, Michael Custer, a 47-year-old father of four and self-described rabble-rouser, said that Nashville brings a "unique perspective" to the global movement but also has some additional challenges.

"We’re the incubation place for Martin Luther King’s nonviolent struggles. This is his test kitchen. … So we have some unique perspective on the nonviolent aspect of these types of struggles,” he said. “The South is generally a lot more laidback and a lot more difficult to motivate. But as you can see … we are out here in the cold and rain so obviously there are quite a few of us that are motivated.”

Custer said he will always be "vocal," but others are not as willing to express their opinions.

“People are terrified of government, they are terrified to the point that they won’t speak out. They’ll tell you what they think behind closed doors,” he said. “I think a lot of that’s held over from the old Klan days where when you spoke out, they came and beat you up, or tried to kill you.”

'Express yourself'
With other camps across the country shut down by authorities in recent weeks or facing the threat of eviction, “it really gives us an opportunity to step in and just become one of the most action-oriented occupations,” said Matt Hamill, 26, a self-described political conservative who works for Radio Free Nashville and hosts a weekly radio show on the movement.

Those actions include even lighter fare, such as a square dancing event with a live band held recently in the plaza.

“(It) really kind of hit home … (that) this is what occupying is about,” Hamill said of the livestream of the event, which garnered positive feedback from supporters around the country. “… You should be allowed to express yourself however you want to and not have to worry about anybody coming in and trying to silence your voice or shut you down.”

Blanchard also noted that people in the chat were saying they needed to see such a lighthearted event, that it was “so cathartic to see a camp having fun.”

“I feel like in a lot of ways … Nashville is starting to become maybe a bit of a tender spot or a hearthstone for other occupiers,” she added. “We’re like the little heartbeat, the little southern hospitality of the movement.”

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