Clinton, Obama top lists of most-admired, Gallup says
By NBP Staff | December 28, 2015, 15:19 EST
BOSTON – Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama topped this year’s Gallup poll of the most-admired woman and man, while U.S. survey results since 1948 show several people with ties to Boston, Massachusetts and New England have made regular appearances.
The late Ted Kennedy, the long-serving U.S. senator from Massachusetts, appeared among the top 10 most-admired men 18 times, according to Gallup’s compilation. His one-time sister-in-law, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, long a Martha’s Vineyard resident, showed up among the top-10 women 28 times.
Another Bay State political figure, Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard Law School professor who lives in Cambridge, made this year’s roster with 1 percent of the survey’s respondents listing her. That percentage matched former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Myanmar political leader Aung San Suu Kyi, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and comedian Ellen Degeneres. Clinton, a former Secretary of State, Senator and First Lady, topped the poll at 13 percent, Gallup reported.
Among men, Vermont’s Bernie Sanders, a Democratic presidential contender and a U.S. Senator, was the only man from the region to make this year’s list, ranking fourth behind Donald Trump. Trump, a New York billionaire and reality television star, is running for the Republican presidential nomination. Pope Francis ranked second in the poll of 824 Americans, although he and Trump tied at 5 percent. Obama was first at 17 percent.
Kennedy, who died in office in 2009 after more than 46 years in the Senate, was the only man with ties to Boston, Massachusetts or New England to make the all-time top 10 list. But Onassis, whose 28 appearances put her behind only the U.K.’s Queen Elizabeth II and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, had some local company. Former Maine politician Margaret Chase Smith, who served more than 20 years in the U.S. Senate, also made the all-time list with 20 appearances.
The telephone Dec. 2-6 poll of residents in all 50 states and the District of Columbia had a margin of error of 4 percentage points, Gallup said.