Poll: White Voters See Obama 'Risky,' McCain 'Safe'

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RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

It's tricky trying to tell from polls precisely what effect race is having on voters' attitudes towards the presidential candidates. Mostly, analysts try to tease it out from other views that voters express.

For instance, in a recent poll by the Washington Post and ABC News, more than half of the white voters surveyed agreed that Barack Obama was a quote, "risky candidate" to hold the power of the presidency, while two-thirds judged John McCain a safe candidate.

That did not make McCain the choice of most voters, but it raised a question about their comfort level with Obama. Other data suggests some of that discomfort has to do with race, and NPR news analyst Juan Williams joins us to talk about that. Good morning.

JUAN WILLIAMS: Good morning, Renee.

MONTAGNE: What do you see in recent polling that suggests the voters are still sorting out their feelings about Barack Obama?

WILLIAMS: Well, there's one recent Washington Post poll, Renee, in which 90 percent of the white voters said that they were comfortable with the idea of having a black person as president. But then, when they were offered the option of saying that saying whether or not they were saying entirely comfortable, about a third of white voters jumped up right away and said, you know what? I'm not entirely comfortable.

I think that's a lot of people who, given the first opportunity to indicate any level of discomfort, would jump up. And then, secondly, there was a Pew poll which asked, simply, are you favorably or unfavorably disposed towards Barack Obama? And there, the voters split, white voters, about 45 percent favorable, 46 percent unfavorable.

But then, the New York Times subsequently did a poll in which they allowed voters to say that they were undecided, not just favorable or unfavorable, but undecided. And then 26 percent - so more than a quarter - said they were undecided on Barack Obama. And, of course, right now, Barack Obama, according to one poll, trails Senator John McCain 46 to 37. So he's losing among white voters right now.

MONTAGNE: Now back in the early months of the primaries, Obama often spoke of his bi-racial roots. Now he's the presumed nominee of the Democratic Party. Race seems to be much more a factor in this contest. Was that inevitable once voters started looking toward November?

WILLIAMS: Well, I think so, in part because this electorate is so different. I mean, when you think about the general election coming up, 77 percent of the voters in the 2004 presidential election were white, only 11 percent black voters. And Obama had tremendous initial support from young, white voters.

He appealed to them as a post-racial candidate. And, of course, in Iowa, the state that really sent him rocketing into the political stratosphere, he spoke about being bi-racial in his roots and downplayed racial differences. But now that he's the presumptive nominee, he's really trying to, you know, talk about post-racial stuff. But, of course, he has to deal with the fact that there's so many white voters, and they see him as black and he doesn't want to get boxed in as the black candidate. And he has to worry and his strategists have to worry that people may just be lying to pollsters when they say that yes, they're willing to vote for Obama as a black man to be president of the United States.

MONTAGNE: Well, what kinds of things, in a way, you want to say, if anything, can Barack Obama do to address this problem of voters' racial comfort zone?

WILLIAMS: Well, the key thing he has to do, Renee, is, you know, identify with concerns of white voters, make it clear that he feels - to quote, you know, Bill Clinton famously - "he feels their pain." But right now, when you ask white voters whether or not Obama shares concerns of people like you, 28 percent of white voters say not much or not at all. So that's a large percentage, and he's got to deal with that. And the way he's got to deal with it is talking about top concerns of those voters. And, of course, those top concerns would be economics, gas prices and the like, as well as the war.

MONTAGNE: Juan, thanks very much.

WILLIAMS: You're welcome, Renee.

MONTAGNE: NPR new analyst Juan Williams.

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