WASHINGTON – US President Donald Trump and former First Lady Michelle Obama are the most admired men and women in the country in 2020, according to an annual Gallup poll.
After being tied last year with former President Barack Obama (2009-2017), Trump is in first place in 2020, ending the reign of his 12-year predecessor at the top of this list. Obama is also linked to former President Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961) for the most admired in US history.
In response to the question “Who is the living man in any part of the world that you have read or heard about that you admire the most?” 15% Obama; 6% President-elect Joe Biden; and 3% White House chief epidemiologist Anthony Fauci.
The 10 most admired list is completed by Pope Francis, tycoon Elon Musk, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, philanthropist and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, basketball player Lebron James and the Dalai Lama.
Of the 74 times Gallup has conducted this 1946 poll, the incumbent has ranked 60th.
The presidents who did not lead this list while in power were Harry Truman, between 1946-1947 and 1950-1952; Lyndon Johnson, in 1967 and 1968; Richard Nixon, in 1973; Gerald Ford, in 1974 and 1975; Jimmy Carter, in 1980; George W. Bush, in 2008; and Trump, in 2017 and 2018.
“That’s what I do,” the former president joked after his Michigan job.
Gallup explained that when the incumbent president is not the primary choice, it is usually because he is unpopular, which was the case with Trump in 2017 and 2018, when he got approval percentages of 36% and 40%, respectively. , and finished second after Obama as the most admired man in America.
Although his approval rating is currently similar to 39%, Trump’s dominance among Republicans contrasts with the division between Democrats when he chooses which figure he admires the most, which pushed him to the first Market Stand.
Among women, Michelle Obama leads the poll for the third year in a row, with 10% support, followed by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris with 6% and First Lady Melania Trump with 4%.
After them, the women most admired by Americans are television host Oprah Winfrey; German Chancellor Angela Merkel; former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; left-wing legislator Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; Queen Elizabeth of England; Conservative Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett; and climate activist Greta Thunberg.
Like incumbent presidents, respondents usually cite the first lady as the most admired woman.
Of the 71 times Gallup asked about them since 1948, Americans answered 18 times that she was the first lady and 57 times the former first lady.
This has been the case since 1997, with Hillary Clinton, the wife of former President Bill Clinton, being the most named, like Michelle Obama, from 2018 to 2020; and Laura Bush, in 2001.
Melania Trump has been in the top 10 for the past four years, but has never been at the top of the list, as did her predecessors Bess Truman (1945-1953) and Lady Bird Johnson (1963-1969).
The survey was conducted by telephone between December 1 and 17 on a random sample of 1,080 adults over the age of 18 in all 50 US states and the District of Columbia.
The margin of error for the survey is ± 4 with a 95% confidence level.