Several media outlets are spending a relatively slow news day jumping on the news that a new Gallup poll shows Donald Trump tied with Pope Francis as the “second most admired man” among American adults:
Americans named Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama as their most admired woman and man in the world in 2015, with Donald Trump earning the same share of admiration as Pope Francis, according to the results of the latest Gallup survey released Monday.
On the list of most admired women, the Democratic presidential front-runner earned 13 percent and was at the top of the annual poll for a record 20th time, seven more times than former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt. Obama earned 17 percent on the men’s side, his eighth time atop the list, tying for second most with former presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan. Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower was named the most admired man 12 times.
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On the list of most admired men, Pope Francis and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump tied for second place with 5 percent each. Meanwhile, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders earned 3 percent, with Bill Gates at 2 percent. A mix of religious and political figures, including the Dalai Lama and George W. Bush, rounded out the top 10, with 1 percent each. For Trump, this is his fifth finish in the top 10, the other instances coming in 1988, 1989, 1990 and 2011.
As the Politico report notes, and as you can easily see if you actually look at the Gallup poll results is that, in this case, coming in second means that Trump’s name was mentioned by just 5% of the people who were polled. This is in a poll in which the person who came in “first” among men, President Obama,was mentioned by 17% of those who responded. Given the fact that poll is conducted by asking respondents to voluntarily mention who they find “most admirable,” it’s not all that surprising that there might be 5% of the public who would pick Donald Trump’s name out of thin air, especially since his name has been in the news almost constantly for the past six months. Additionally, for better or worse Trump has been a “celebrity” of long standing and has shown up on this list several times before. Factor into this the fact that the margin of error on this poll is +/- 4%, and the 5% that Trump garners in this poll becomes even more meaningless. As for the President coming in first on the list, that’s no surprise either. It’s typically the case that the President of the United States comes out on top on this list among men. Once again, we’re talking about someone who is in the news virtually every day of the week, so when you have a poll that asks people to randomly name someone
The other news to come out of this poll, which Gallup performs on an annual basis, is that Hillary Clinton is once again named as the most admired woman among Americans. This is the 14th consecutive year, the 20th year overall that she’s been at the top of the list for women, and the 24th year she has been in the top ten list in any position, which puts her in 5th place in that category behind Queen Elizabeth II, Margaret Thatcher, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Oprah Winfrey. Given the fact that Clinton has been arguably the most prominent woman in politics for the past two decades this isn’t entirely surprising, but even here it’s worth noting some caveats. First of all, Clinton only garners 13% of the mentions in this years poll, which is fewer than she’s received in years past and likely a reflection of the fact that we are in the middle of a highly partisan Presidential election. Second, from the poll results it seems clear there were a significant number of respondents who were unable to name a person. Finally, as with the result for Donald Trump the fact that there’s a 4% margin of error here makes the results far less meaningful than they appear to be.
So, yes, Trump tied with the Pope as the second most admired man, and Hillary is once again the most admired woman, but this poll means far less than Gallup or the rest of the media is likely to pretend it means.
