FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Identity

Michelle Obama Voted Most Admired Woman; Hillary and Melania Tie for Third

Hillary Clinton had previously been ranked first in the decades-old Gallup poll for 17 years running.
Michelle Obama in a yellow dress wearing glittery boots.

Michelle Obama is a lawyer, mother to cool kids, funny, fashionable, super-successful author, and now officially the most admired woman in the world, according to Americans. At least, that's what Gallup says—they've been polling in the US to find out which men and women they most admire since 1946, and, for the last 17 years, the woman has been Hillary Clinton. But no more. As Clinton has fallen to the shadow of her forest home following her downfall against President Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election, Obama has soared stridently into the public fray of late, shedding the ties of diplomacy demanded by her previous political position in a move that has gained her unprecedented numbers of admirers.

Advertisement

Respondents to Gallup's latest admiration poll place Michelle Obama a full 10 points ahead of her closest competitor, Oprah Winfrey. After that, Hillary Clinton and Melania Trump share third place, at four percent of the vote. The most admired man? That would be former President Barack Obama, who beat out Donald Trump by six whole points.

The rising popularity of Michelle Obama ought not to be too surprising, given the tidal success of her new book, Becoming, named the best-selling book of 2018, with some two million books sold in the first two weeks after release. In the book, Obama offered insight into her life after the White House, bringing new levels of awareness to her experience as the first Black woman to serve as First Lady and the particular pressures and politics associated with that position. Additionally, Obama addresses her famous fashion sense and how much she dislikes politics in favor of, as The New York Times put it, empowerment.

Obama has endeared herself to the public with her honesty, opening up about the pain of miscarriage and the significance of her relationships with other women as she made her way through two terms in the White House. According to Gallup, Obama previously "finished second to Clinton three times" in their poll.