Trump or Clinton Young Americans prefer giant meteor
One in four of the 1,247 people aged 18 to 35 polled said they would prefer to see a meteor destroy the world than have Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office.
One in four of the 1,247 people aged 18 to 35 polled said they would prefer to see a meteor destroy the world than have Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in the Oval Office.
Young Americans are so dissatisfied with the choices in this presidential election that nearly one in four told an opinion poll they would rather have a giant meteor destroy the Earth than see Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton in the White House.
The tongue-in-cheek question was intended to gauge young Americans’ level of unhappiness about their choices in the Nov. 8 election, said Joshua Dyck, co-director of U Mass Lowell’s Center for Public Opinion, which conducted the poll October 10-13. It had a margin of error of 3.2 per cent.
The choice alluded to the Twitter hashtag #GiantMeteor2016, a reference to an imaginary presidential candidate used to express frustration about this year’s election choices.
Some 53 per cent of the 1,247 people aged 18 to 35 said they would prefer to see a meteor destroy the world than have Republican New York real estate developer Trump in the Oval Office, with some 34 per cent preferring planetary annihilation to seeing the Democratic former secretary of state win. Overall, nearly one in four preferred the giant meteor outcome to either Trump or Clinton.
Some 39 per cent said they would prefer that US President Barack Obama declare himself President for life than hand overpower to Clinton or Trump, with 26 per cent saying the nation would do better to select its next leader in a random lottery.
“The fact that one in four of our young people pick ‘Giant Meteor’ tells you something about the political disaffection that is being shown by American youth,” Mr Dyck said.
That contrasts with the surge of participation by young voters that helped propel Obama into the White House in the 2008 election.