Trump and Michelle Obama are the most admired characters in America, according to Gallup
The second and third places on the list of most admired men are occupied by Barack Obama and Joe Biden, respectively. As for women, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris remains on the list.
Donald Trump and Michelle Obama are the men and women most admired by Americans this year, according to the latest Gallup poll. With this, the current president removes Barack Obama from his throne, who for twelve years topped the list of the most admired men in the country.
Now the former president is second on this list and President-elect Joe Biden has reached number three. On her side, Michelle Obama held the top spot for the third year in a row, followed by Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.
Presidents are usually the top of the list, and only in a few years has the trend been contradicted. Some of the leaders who did not achieve the first position during certain moments of their mandate were Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerard Ford, Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush and, finally, Donald Trump in 2017 and 2018.
The failures of former presidents at such times were usually accompanied by figures of low popular approval. This is the case of Donald Trump, who in 2017 had a popularity that was around 36% and in 2018 40%.
However, Trump reached the top spot this year, even amid the political polarization that dominated the country during the fierce presidential campaign and massive Black Lives Matter protests. The president's popularity in 2020 was not much different than in previous years. According to Gallup, he was around 39 approval points. However, the pollster notes that the president leads the list by the division of the Democratic population, which was contrasted with the unity of the Republican public that opted for Trump.
Of those polled who identify as Republicans, 48% voted for the president, while Democrats had a vote divided among various figures. 32% of the vote went to Barack Obama, Joe Biden won 13% and Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leader in the response to the pandemic, got 5%.
The poll shows the tremendous popularity the president continues to have despite the fact that he was defeated by the Democrat in the last elections on November 3. Joe Biden was victorious with more than 81 million popular votes and 306 electoral college votes. On his side, Trump got more than 74 million popular votes and 232 electoral votes. The dispute in the elections was close, which led to the official results being known only a week after the official voting day.
Since then, the president has insisted on ignoring the results, claiming that the elections were the subject of a fraud campaign by the Democratic Party. So far, the president has not provided any evidence to support his allegations. Even the various legal appeals that he presented to state and federal courts for the alleged fraud have been mostly dismissed by the judicial authorities.
This setback that he received from justice was only worsened by the latest statements from the United States Attorney General, William Barr, who until a few months ago was his faithful ally. In an interview with AFP, Barr said the investigations had not yielded any indication that the counts had been tampered with.
The Gallup poll results also bring to the table the nature of the past election and what awaits Joe Biden when he takes office on January 20. Much of the votes the Democrat received were not an expression of confidence in his personality, but a vote of punishment for Trump. This could explain his low popularity in the recent poll. In addition, the results show that Biden will have to govern a country divided between two positions that seem difficult to reconcile.
On the other hand, Democratic leaders dominate the list of the most popular women of the year 2020. The first place is taken by Michelle Obama and in second position by Kamala Harris. According to Gallup, the list is commonly headed by first ladies. So Harris - as the first vice president-elect of the United States - marks a historic milestone in the poll. The third place went to the current first lady, Melania Trump, and the fourth the star of the entertainment Oprah Winfrey.
