Zelensky Tops Ranking of Most Popular World Leaders Among US Public

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has been placed first in an approval ranking in the United States.

The poll by global public opinion pollster YouGov gave the Ukrainian head of state, who has been the target of frequent criticism by Donald Trump, a total favorability score of 42% (22% very favorable, 20% somewhat favorable) against an unfavorability score of 29% (14% very unfavorable, 15% somewhat unfavorable), yielding a net favorability of +14%.  

A further 29% did not know. 

Second in the ranking came Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, with a net score of 6% followed by Claudia Sheinbaum, the president of Mexico, with a 5% net score. 

Rounding out the top five were King Charles III (net 3%) and Prime Minister of Japan Sanae Takaichi (net 3%). 

The least favored world leader among Americans was North Korean leader Kim Jon Un with a net rating of -73%, one point behind Vladimir Putin of Russia (net-72%), who came behind Nicolás Maduro (-53%), the former Venezuelan president, Xi Jinping of China (-44%) and the leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei (-29%). 

YouGov conducted the poll on a representative sample of 2,274 adult U.S. citizens between January 22 and 26.