America’s Global Electorate

The FINANCIAL — Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have been hard at work trying to convince the American public to vote for them.

The FINANCIAL — Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have been hard at work trying to convince the American public to vote for them.

Both have managed to convince quite a few people of their worth, and the race remains too close to call. The rest of the world, however, has a very clear preference for the next American president: 81% of those with an opinion want Barack Obama to stay on the job.  

This data comes from a poll completed less than a month ago, for which Georgian Opinion Research Business International and partner firms in WIN-Gallup International surveyed 26,000 people in over 30 countries.  We asked each respondent their opinions on the next US president and America’s effect on the rest of the world. 

Who? — While the world overwhelmingly supports Obama, there is variation by country, of course. Barack is the clear choice for Iceland (98%), the Netherlands (97%), and Portugal (97%).  He received less support in Pakistan (59%) and Georgia (64%) though is still the obvious preference.  In fact, the only country that feels the next US president should be a Republican, if you couldn’t guess, is Israel.  65% of Israelis opted for Mitt. 

The explanation for this should be obvious to those versed in American politics: even though the US has consistently given heavy support to Israel since its creation, Republicans have typically been more verbally and fiscally supportive of the close tie between the two countries. 

There were a large number of people who said they didn’t know who to pick (14%), that the choice would make no difference (6%), or that neither candidate is appealing (18%).  In this article and its tables, each candidate’s numbers exclude these non-responses unless otherwise stated. 

Who Cares? — GORBI and our WIN-Gallup International partners also asked each respondent “How much would you say is the impact of American President on the life of your country?” Globally, 63% of those polled said that the US president has either a “very high” or “high” impact on their country.  28% felt the impact was small or non-existent.

Georgians were much more divided on the impact of the US president.  48% felt there was a great impact, and 44% felt the opposite.  Furthermore, Georgia was the most skeptical of the difference between the two men; be it Mitt or Barack, 46% of Georgians say it makes no difference who the next president is.

Why? — We then asked which particular qualities influenced the respondent’s preference.  The provided options were: policies towards your country, policies on world economy, policies on war and national security, personality and personal background, and competence for the job.  Surprisingly enough, only 23% cited US policies toward their own country as a factor.  More people (30%) were influenced by the candidates’ global attitudes on the economy (15%) and war (14%).  41% said that more personal traits drove them to support a particular candidate.  23% feel their candidate is more competent and 19% cited personality.

Countries that show more support for Mitt Romney are much more concerned with the effect of the President on their country.  The five countries who are most concerned with US policy toward their country (56%  Israelis, 45% of Lebanon, 42% of Pakistan, and 37% of China and Georgia) are also the five most supportive of a Romney presidency.  Conversely, those that are the least concerned about the US influence in their homelands all gave Obama more than 90% approval.  These countries were all more likely to be concerned with competence and personality.

This poll was conducted by Georgian Opinion Research Business International and WIN Gallup International and covers 55% of the world’s population.  Polls of this sort have margins of error of around 3% with 95% confidence.