Obama trumps the chief, takes top spot as Gallup’s ‘Most Admired Man’

NewsWorks Tonight host Dave Heller sits down for his weekly conversation with Gallup’s Frank Newport to talk about trends in U.S. opinion.

This week, we look ahead to 2018 with some projections.

Americans overwhelmingly think that 2018 is going to be a year of international trouble rather than a year of international peace. This is not uncommon but more so than usual.

Americans are split in terms of their projections regarding whether the nation will increase its power in 2018 or whether American power will decrease. Americans usually say that power will increase, so this year’s sentiment is actually lower than usual.

Americans tilt slightly towards saying that 2018 will be a year of economic prosperity rather than a year of economic difficulty. This is unusual. The only other time periods in which Americans were more positive than negative about the coming year were in 1965 and 1966, and 1998 and 1999.

And finally, Gallup’s annual Most Admired list:

The most admired woman is Hillary Clinton. Barack Obama is the most admired man — marking one of the relatively few times when the sitting president did not win.

Listen to the audio above to hear the full conversation.