Barack Obama has overtaken Jesus as the most worshipped human ever by the World’s greatest superpower, being named a hero by 4% of Americans in a Survey Monkey Poll of 100 U.S. adults I conducted earlier this week. Jesus and President Trump were tied for second place being named by 3% each. Rounding out the top six were Bernie Sanders, Batman and Washington with 2% each.
This is the sixth known time the poll has been conducted with the first three times being done by the Harris polling company in 2001, 2009 and 2014. After waiting eight long years for them to do the poll again, I decided to do it myself using Survey Monkey in 2022, 2023 and 2025.
Most years “Christ is King” as the Christians like to say, but in 2009 and now 2025, Obama beat him, though admittedly, I’m not a professional pollster like Harris so the 2025 sample size was small and likely not as representative as professional polls which match repondents on a greater number of U.S. census demographics..
The poll involves asking American adults who they admired enough to consider a hero (maximum 3 names). Because respondents are not given a pre-selected list to choose from and are free to name literally anyone who had ever lived (or not have lived in the case of fictional characters or religious myths) being named by even 1% of Americans is a huge honor and means millions of people in the World’s most powerful country, rank you above 99.9999999% of all humanity! Not surprisingly then, the list is typically dominated by people with God like status in the culture such as Jesus and U.S. Presidents, and in this way serves as a proxy for power and influence.
While Obama was the most worshipped man (alive or dead, real or fictional) of 2025, there was no most worshipped woman of the year because the only women to be named in 2025 were all tied with only 1% naming each one.
Highest ranked people men and women by year:
Complete results by year:
| Dec 28-29 2025 (survey monkey) | Dec 31 2023 (survey monkey) | Dec 30, 2022 (survey monkey) | Sept 2014 (Harris poll) | Jan 2009 (Harris poll) | July 2001 (Harris poll) |
| Barack Obama 4% | Jesus 9% | Jesus 5% | Jesus | Barack Obama | Jesus |
| Jesus 3% | God 4% | Barack Obama 3% | Ronald Reagan | Jesus | Martin Luther King Jr. |
| Donald Trump 3% | Barack Obama 4% | Donald Trump 3% | Barack Obama | Martin Luther King Jr. | Colin Powell |
| Bernie Sanders 2% | Abraham Lincoln 3% | Abraham Lincoln 2% | Martin Luther King Jr. | Ronald Reagan | John F Kennedy |
| Batman 2% | Superman 3% | Elon Musk 1% | God | George W. Bush | Mother Teresa |
| Washington 2% | Joe Biden 3% | God 1% | Abraham Lincoln | Abraham Lincoln | Ronald Reagan |
| God 1% | Donald Trump 2% | Chesley Sullenberger 1% | Mother Teresa | John McCain | Abraham Lincoln |
| Greta Thunberg 1% | Tarzan 1% | Pope Francis 1% | Billy Graham | John F Kennedy | John Wayne |
| Simone Biles 1% | Terminator 1% | Volodymyr Zelenskyy 1% | George W. Bush | Chesley Sullenberger | Michael Jordan |
| Joe Biden 1% | Steve Jobs 1% | Mother Teresa 1% | Pope Francis | Mother Teresa | Bill Clinton |
| Michelle Obama 1% | Jeff Bezos 1% | Martin Luther King Jr. 1% | God | John Glenn | |
| Michael Jackson 1% | Ronald Reagan 1% | Spiderman 1% | Hillary Clinton | Norman Shwartzkoph | |
| Derrick Henry 1% | Imran Khan 1% | Michelle Obama 1% | Billy Graham | George Washington | |
| Oprah Winfrey 1% | Michelle Obama 1% | Washington 1% | Franklin D Roosevelt | Oprah Winfrey | |
| Jamie Johnson 1% | Ellen DeGeneres 1% | Mahatma Ghandi | Franklin D Roosevelt | ||
| Jeff Tweedy 1% | Mother Teresa 1% | Colin Powell | Princess Diana | ||
| Mother Teresa 1% | Taylor Swift 1% | George Washington | Dwight Eisenhower | ||
| Pope Francis 1% | Kris Jenner 1% | Bill Clinton | Pope John Paul | ||
| Cena 1% | Holy Spirit 1% | Condoleeza Rice | George W. Bush | ||
| Ulysses Grant 1% | Lamar Jackson 1% | Oprah Winfrey | Jimmy Carter | ||
| Martin Luther King 1% | William Buckley1% | Sarah Palin | Nelson Mandela | ||
| Abraham Lincoln 1% | Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1% | General George S Patton | Jesse Jackson | ||
| Liz Cheney 1% | Wonder Woman 1% | Bill Gates | Tiger Woods | ||
| Maximillian Kolbe 1% | Kobe Bryant 1% | Malcom X | |||
| Fred Rogers 1% | Lebron James 1% | Thomas Jefferson | |||
| Shania Twain 1% | Bruce Lee 1% | Eleanor Roosevelt | |||
| Chris Pratt 1% | Ruth Bader Ginsburg 1% | Muhammad Ali | |||
| Jim Caviezel 1% | John Glenn 1% | Venus Williams | |||
| Rey Skywalker 1% | Neil Armstrong 1% | Hillary Clinton | |||
| Michael Jordan 1% | Gus Grissom 1% | Neil Armstrong | |||
| Jimmy Buffet 1% | |||||
| Spider-Man 1% | |||||
| Batman 1% | |||||
| Albert Einstein 1% | |||||
| Ricky Gervais 1% | |||||
| Jane Goodall 1% | |||||
| Michael Jordan1% | |||||
| Kyle Busch1% | |||||
| Dolly Parton 1% | |||||
| Muhammad 1% | |||||
| Moses 1% |
Pumpkin Person 