Former first lady Michelle Obama is the most admired woman in America, reveals a new poll

Former first lady Michelle Obama has been named the most admired woman in America for the second year in a row by a new poll released by Gallup. The mother-of-two took the crown over her successor Melania Trump with 10 percent of poll participants naming Michelle the woman they admire the most in comparison to the 5 percent vote gained by the current first lady of the United States. Although the Becoming author saw a decline in votes this year when compared to the 15 percent she scored in 2018, she still managed to become the only woman on the list to earn a double-digit score.

Michelle is also the sixth first lady to win the title, joining the ranks of Eleanor Roosevelt (1948-1950 and 1952-1961), Jacqueline Kennedy (1963-1966), Mamie Eisenhower (1969-1970), Betty Ford (1978), and Hillary Clinton (2002-2017). Current first lady Melania tied for the second rank with the former talk show host Oprah Winfrey, while Clinton came in third with teen climate change activist Greta Thunberg with 3 percent of US adults naming each the most admired. Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and former US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley also found spots in the top 10 most admired women list.

While political affiliations did influence the participants' choice of the most admired woman, it reportedly wasn't as pronounced as the most admired man list. 23 percent of Democrats, 7 percent of independents, and 2 percent of Republicans voted for Michelle while Melania was the top vote-getter among Republicans with 11 percent votes. It is also worth noting that the Obama matriarch seems to have risen in popularity since leaving the White House, seeing stronger finishes in the past two years than during her eight years as the first lady.

This poll that has been conducted by Gallup every year since 1948, asks "Americans to name, in an open-ended fashion, which man and woman living anywhere in the world they admire most." This year, it was conducted via telephone interviews between December 2 and December 15 with a random sample of 1,025 adults who were 18 years of age or above, living in all 50 US states and the District of Columbia.

The poll results come less than a month after Michelle was honored with a spot in the 2019 People Of The Year list, alongside the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Jennifer Aniston, and Taylor Swift. Earlier this year in July, the 55-year-old made headlines after she was found to be the most admired woman in the world based on a poll conducted by data analysis firm YouGov. Both polls come after the former first lady's global book tour for her bestselling memoir Becoming which since being published in November 2018, broke global sales records, and was hailed as one of the most popular memoirs of all time.