Barack Obama Trumps The President As The Most Admired American In Gallup Poll

Former President Barack Obama edged out President Donald Trump as America’s most admired man, according to the results of an annual Gallup poll published Wednesday. The poll also showed that Hillary Clinton retained as the most admired woman by Americans.

Trump, who has been suffering low approval ratings as his first year in the White House almost comes to an end, was at the second position after his predecessor, polling 14 percent to 17 percent. In 2016, Obama also led Trump by 22 percent to 15 percent.

Obama has held the title every year during his presidency and also the year he was elected.

Trump is not the first current president who has not been named most-admired man — Jimmy Carter, Harry Truman, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Gerald Ford, and George W. Bush all missed out in years of their presidency mainly corresponding to poor approval ratings.

In the time span of 71 years that Gallup has conducted the most-admired poll, the current president has won the top spot for a total of 58 times.

Apart from Trump and Obama, Pope Francis was named the third-most admired man in the United States this year, at three percent. Arizona Sen. John McCain, billionaire inventor Elon Musk, and the Rev Billy Graham, all acquired two percent.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders scored one percent, in level with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the Dalai Lama, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Vice President Mike Pence, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Clinton, who lost the presidency to Trump in the electoral race despite beating him in the popular vote by nearly three million ballots, was named as most-admired American woman for the 16^th consecutive year by nine percent of Gallup respondents. She has held the spot for 22 times in total, which is even more than Eleanor Roosevelt, who won the spot for 13 times.

That was also enough to put Clinton two points ahead of former first lady Michelle Obama and five ahead of well-known anchor Oprah Winfrey in third. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren won three percent of the vote, just one spot ahead of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Queen Elizabeth II, both of who won 2 percent.

Current first lady Melania Trump scored one percent, in level with former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, Kate Middleton, current United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, and Beyoncé Knowles.

The results of the Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews that were conducted between Dec. 4 and Dec. 11 with 1,049 adults participating nationwide. The survey has been conducted since 1946, with only the bicentennial year of 1976 that was un-polled.

According to Gallup, "a quarter of Americans cannot name a man or a woman they admire most" while 9 percent named a relative or friend as their most admired man and 13 percent did the same for the most admired woman.

The current president also trails his predecessor in Time magazine Person of the Year wins, 2-1, and 23-14 in appearances on the cover of the same publication. Obama has retained the top spot in the Gallup survey for 10 straight years, since 2008 when he was first elected to the White House as president.

Former President Dwight Eisenhower and Obama are the only two former presidents to have retained the title. Clinton’s husband, Former President Bill Clinton, has now dropped out of the top 25 in the poll.