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Americans See Trump, Obama Equally Worthy of Nobel Peace Prize

If President Trump brings the North Korea crisis to a peaceful end, Americans think he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize as much as former President Obama now merits the one he received in 2009.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 42% of American Adults believe Trump should be given the Nobel Peace Prize if he engineers the end of the North Korean nuclear threat. Forty-five percent (45%) disagree, while 13% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Similarly, 40% think Obama still deserves the Nobel Peace Prize he was awarded, but 46% disagree. Thirteen percent (13%) are not sure.

In October 2014, just 26% of Americans said Obama still deserved the prize; 55% said he did not.

Sixty-five percent (65%) of Republicans say Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize if he resolves the North Korea situation, but only 30% of Democrats agree. Sixty-four percent (64%) of Democrats say Obama still deserves his Nobel, but only 21% of Republicans agree. By nearly identical margins, Americans not affiliated with either major party tend to feel neither president is entitled to the prestigious award.

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The survey of 1,000 American Adults was conducted on April 30-May 1, 2018 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.  

Only 38% of Americans believe the Nobel Prize is the most prestigious award someone can win, and most have long felt that politics plays a part in the awarding of the Nobels.  Winners of the annual Nobel Peace Prize have included Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, ex-President Jimmy Carter, Mother Teresa and former Vice President Al Gore.  

Only 18% of Americans who think Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize if he ends the North Korea threat believe Obama should keep his. Among those who oppose the award for Trump, 64% feel Obama still deserves the honor.

Men and middle-aged adults are more supportive of a Trump prize than women and those of other ages are. Men and older Americans believe more strongly that Obama doesn’t deserve the prize he received.

Less than a month ago, 51% of all likely voters said it is unlikely that the planned summit between Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un will result in a slowing or stopping of North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons.

In the last few days, however, Kim has held an historic peace meeting with the South Korean president and has said he will end his nuclear weapons program if the United States agrees not to invade his country.

In late February, after Trump imposed extensive new economic sanctions on North Korea to discourage that country's development of nuclear weapons, 71% of Republicans gave him positive marks for his handling of North Korea. But just 23% of Democrats and 41% of voters not affiliated with either major party agreed.

Republicans are also more confident than Democrats and unaffiliateds that most Americans can find North Korea on a map.

Fears of a North Korean attack have been lessening here.

But then 69% of Democrats and unaffiliated voters by a 47% to 41% margin said last September that Trump is a bigger danger to the United States than the North Korean dictator who is threatening to attack us with nuclear weapons.

Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.

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The survey of 1,000 American Adults was conducted on April 30-May 1, 2018 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology

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