Over Half of Americans Would Vote for Obama for President Now: Poll
A new poll has found that over half of Americans would be likely to vote for Barack Obama if he ran for president now.
The survey, conducted by YouGov between August 9 and August 12 and released on September 30, asked 1,102 adults in the US what their favorability ratings were of 10 former U.S. Presidents, and whether they would vote for them if they ran in 2024.
Barack Obama received a 57 percent favorability rating from people polled, and 53 percent of respondents said they were either “very likely,” or “somewhat likely” to vote for Obama if he ran in 2024.
However, these results are sharply split along partisan lines. Where 93 percent of Democrat respondents viewed Obama favorably, only 18 percent of Republican respondents felt the same.
Similarly, 91 percent of Democrats would vote for Obama if they could in 2024, but only 10 percent of Republicans would do so.
Additionally, Obama had higher favorability ratings among young adults polled than older adults. Two-thirds of respondents under 30 said they would vote for him, but a little less than half of those older agreed.
Charly Triballeau/Getty images
Other former presidents listed on the poll alongside Obama were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan.
The poll revealed that the most highly favored former President in America today is Lincoln, who would receive 79 percent of votes among both Democrats and Republicans if he ran for office in 2024. This includes the 50 percent of respondents who said they were “highly likely” to vote for Lincoln.
Kennedy was the second most popular former president on the list, with 70 percent of respondents saying they’d vote for him. Obama came in seventh, beating former presidents Eisenhower, Raegan, and Truman.
Respondents’ opinions of former presidents were much more pronounced than polls show favorability of the actual candidates running in 2024 to be.
According to the most recent data from YouGov, Kamala Harris has a favorability rating of 48.2 percent and Donald Trump has a favorability rating of 44 percent, as of September 24.
Alex Brandon/Getty images
Despite it being his 100th birthday, President Jimmy Carter was not listed as an option on the poll. If he were, he would be the only person on that list actually eligible to run for office in 2024 as he is both a one-term president and also currently alive.
YouGov lists Carter as the most popular Democrat politician, even more popular than Barack Obama, with a 60 percent favorability rating as of mid-2024.
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