For the second year in a row, Michelle Obama is Gallup’s Most Admired Woman, beating out First Lady Melania Trump in the 2019 poll. Obama, 55, earned 10% of the write-in vote, followed by Trump, 49, with 5% of the votes, according to Gallup. The first ladies were trailed by Oprah Winfrey, 65, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, 72, and climate activist Greta Thunberg, 16, all with three percent in the annual poll each. Other top contenders in the poll, which ran from December 2 to 15 include, Queen Elizabeth II (her 51st time!), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and former UN ambassador Nikki Haley.
Obama’s percentage is down from 15% in the 2018 poll. This year, she was also crowned Most Admired Woman in the July YouGov poll, again beating out Clinton, Winfrey, Queen Elizabeth, and Angelina Jolie. Obama’s honors come amidst an incredibly busy year. She spent the majority of it on a nationwide book tour after her 2018 memoir, Becoming, became the best-selling book in the United States that year. She saw her youngest daughter, Sasha Obama, off to the University of Michigan in August 2019, and continued her dedicated work to encourage young people to vote. Learn more about HollywoodLife‘s partnership with the former first lady’s organization, When We All Vote, HERE.
As for men, the former first ladies’ husbands, former President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump, tied for first place as Most Admired Man of 2019. Historically, first ladies tend to poll better than their husbands, according to Gallup, but that wasn’t the case for the Trumps this year, or in 2018. Michelle Obama is the sixth first lady to win the top honor in the annual Gallup poll, joining Eleanor Roosevelt (1948-1950 and 1952-1961), Jacqueline Kennedy (1963-1966), Mamie Eisenhower (1969-1970), Betty Ford (1978), and Clinton (2002-2017).