Trump dethrones Obama as ‘most admired’

Donald Trump has topped an annual survey naming America’s “most admired man”, ending the 12-year winning streak of his predecessor in the White House, Barack Obama.

The polling company Gallup has asked Americans to come up with their most admired man in the world 74 times since 1946, with the incumbent president topping the list on 60 occasions.

It doesn’t always happen though. Former presidents Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush were all beaten at least once during their years in office.

President Trump has previously trailed behind Mr Obama, whose 12 times topping the list tie him with another US president, Dwight Eisenhower, for the most ever.

This time around, 18 per cent of respondents named Mr Trump, ahead of Mr Obama with 15 per cent.

The rest of the top ten were: president-elect Joe Biden (6 per cent), infectious disease expert Dr Anthony Fauci (3 per cent), Pope Francis (2 per cent), and then 1 per cent apiece for the Dalai Lama, basketballer LeBron James, Senator Bernie Sanders and businessmen Bill Gates and Elon Musk.

Former first lady Michelle Obama topped the list of most admired women for the third consecutive year, with 10 per cent of the vote.

The other women in the top ten were: vice president-elect Kamala Harris (6 per cent), First Lady Melania Trump (4 per cent), Oprah Winfrey (3 per cent), German Chancellor Angela Merkel (2 per cent), former secretary of state Hillary Clinton (2 per cent), Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (2 per cent), Queen Elizabeth (2 per cent), and then a percentage point each for Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett and activist Greta Thunberg.

The “most admired woman” question has been asked 71 times over the years, with a current or former first lady winning on 57 occasions.

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According to Gallup, political partisans “tend to name public figures aligned with their own party” when they answer the survey. That was the case again this year.

Mr Trump was particularly popular among registered Republicans, drawing 48 per cent from that group. No other figure got more than 2 per cent from Republican voters.

Mr Obama’s 32 per cent among Democrats was down from 41 per cent a year ago, with significant chunks of his support moving to Mr Biden (13 per cent among Democrats) and Dr Fauci (5 per cent).

If you’re interested in some more numbers, Gallup keeps track of how many times each person has finished in the top ten of its survey.

This is Mr Trump’s tenth appearance, with four of them coming before he entered politics (1988, 1989, 1990 and 2011).

The record among men is held by the late evangelist preacher Billy Graham, with a whopping 61 appearances in the top ten. Former president Ronald Reagan had 31, and among this year’s names, Mr Gates leads the way with 21. Mr Obama has 15.

Among women, the Queen has been in the top ten 52 times, followed by former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher with 34 appearances, Ms Winfrey with 33, and Ms Clinton with 29.

In its breakdown of the results, Gallup also includes some predictions about what could happen in the next few years, because why the heck not.

“Should Mr Trump continue to dominate Republicans’ consciousnesses – currently, Republicans rarely name any other public person than him – he will have a good chance of winning in future years, especially if Democrats continue to split their choices between Obama and Biden,” it says.

“Ms Harris’s prominent role in the forthcoming Biden administration should raise her national profile in the coming year, and possibly position her to overtake Michelle Obama as most admired woman.”