New Survey Shows G-20 Voters Favor Hillary Clinton to be Next U.S. President
WASHINGTON, March 22, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --
U.S. Democrat Hillary Clinton is the top choice of people in the world's 20 largest industrial nations to become the next U.S. president, according to a new opinion poll released Tuesday by Germany's Handelsblatt Publishing Group and YouGov, the online pollster.
Ms. Clinton is the frontrunner in all but two G-20 countries, and her strongest supporters are in Mexico, Italy, Germany, India and Brazil. She has the least support in Russia, China and Saudi Arabia. There's only one country in the world that would elect Donald Trump over her if it could: Russia, where he's favored by 31 percent to 10 percent for Ms. Clinton.
YouGov and Handelsblatt, publisher of Germany's leading financial daily, surveyed 1,000 people in each G-20 nation on global and U.S. leadership, and the popularity of current leaders. The survey was conducted to find out what the residents of the biggest countries in the world are thinking and feeling about the state of our planet, its leadership, priorities and concerns.
The poll is one of the first to sample attitudes broadly across the G-20, which includes Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. Together, G-20 nations generate about 85 percent of the world's economic output and have two-thirds of its population.
Across the countries surveyed, people were pessimistic about the near-term future. Four in 10 expected the world economy to deteriorate, only two in 10 expected an improvement and the rest expected no change. On an individual level, however, more were optimistic than pessimistic.
The United States topped the ranking as the "most important'’ world power, followed by China, Russia, Germany and the United Kingdom. The "most likeable'’ world power was also the United States, followed by Canada, Britain, Germany and Australia.
But the most "aggressive'’ world power, after Russia, was also the United States, followed by China, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Canada was seen to have the highest quality of life, followed by Germany, the United States, Australia and Britain. The United States was judged to have the best political system, followed by Britain, Germany, Canada and Australia. The United States was most often seen as having the best economic system, followed by Germany, Japan, Britain and Canada.
"Contrary to conventional politics, which has brought us permanent conflict and a clash of cultures, our study shows that the world is on its way to becoming a global village,'’ said Gabor Steingart, the chief executive of Handelsblatt Publishing Group. "Most people in the G-20 surprisingly agree on the big issues when it comes to the economy, leadership and politics. Societies are more united than their leaders. Europeans, Asians and Americans all want the same: stability, a sense of order and prosperity. But most of all, they want a change in the direction of world politics."
In the poll, the 20,000 respondents identified wars and terrorism, climate change and environmental pollution, and the growing gap between rich and poor as the world's three biggest problems, followed by famine, religious conflicts, unbridled financial markets and overpopulation.
According to the survey, the "most trusted'’ leaders in the world today are Pope Francis and Barack Obama, each the choice of 28 percent of those surveyed. The Dalai Lama finished third with 23 percent, followed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, with 18 percent, German Chancellor Angela Merkel with 13 percent, Vladimir Putin with 12 percent and U.S. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon with 12 percent. Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg was the choice of 8 percent of respondents, and British Prime Minister David Cameron and Chinese President Xi Jinping each received 7 percent.
The global online survey was conducted from January 19 through February 23 by YouGov on behalf of Handelsblatt, which publishes the English-language newspaper and business magazine, Handelsblatt Global Edition (http://www.handelsblattglobal.com.)
When asked to elect a theoretical head of a world government, 23 percent of people polled chose U.S. President Barack Obama as their top choice, followed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, with 10 percent, Russian President Vladimir Putin with 9 percent, and Chinese President Xi Jinping and British Prime Minister David Cameron, each with 4 percent.
Ms. Clinton was the clear choice for U.S. president of 35 percent of people polled in the survey. Mr. Trump finished second globally with 9 percent of the vote, followed by Mr. Sanders with 7 percent, Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush each with 3 percent, and Marco Rubio and Ben Carson each with 2 percent.
Methodology: Respondents in each country were weighted to balance the results for gender, age and geography. The individual national surveys have a statistical margin of error of 5 % with a +/- 2-3% variance. The survey of 20,000 respondents has a 5% margin of error with a +/- 0.5 % variance.
About Handelsblatt Publishing Company
Handelsblatt Publishing is one of Europe's leading publishers owned by Dieter von Holtzbrinck Media. The group includes Handelsblatt, Germany's leading financial daily newspaper (http://www.handelsblatt.com), Handelsblatt Global Edition (http://www.handelsblattglobal.com), WirtschaftsWoche, Germany's leading weekly business magazine (http://www.wiwo.de), Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin's market-leading daily newspaper (http://www.tagesspiegel.de) and Die Zeit, Germany's leading weekly newspaper (http://www.zeit.de)
About YouGov
London-based YouGov plc is an international full-service market research agency and one of the world's leading online pollsters and publisher of the annual Global Survey of Affluence and Wealth.
Contacts
Kevin O'Brien
Editor in Chief
Handelsblatt Global Edition
+49-151-1624-8111
[email protected]
Dirk Heilmann
Chief Economist
Handelsblatt Research Institute
+49-211-887-2520
[email protected]
Kerstin Jaumann
Head of Communication
Handelsblatt Publishing Group
+49-211-887-1015
[email protected]
SOURCE Handelsblatt Global Edition
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