A recent poll found that five percent of Americans would vote for Harambe as president if he ran as an independent candidate in the 2016 election.
Conducted by Public Policy Polling in late July, the poll asked 1,276 likely voters about their various political stances, including their opinions on Barack Obama, Tim Kaine, and Harambe — the infamous gorilla who was shot and killed by a zooworker in May.
Question 10 asked, “If the candidates for President were Democrat Hillary Clinton, Republican Donald Trump, and independent Harambe, who would you vote for?”
Forty eight percent of respondents said they would vote for Clinton, while 43 percent said they would vote for Trump. Four percent were conflicted by the daunting choice— they answered “not sure” — and the final five percent opted for Harambe the gorilla.
The left-leaning firm included Harambe in its survey as a way to predict how third-party candidates would fare in the actual election, said Tom Jensen, director of Public Policy Polling.
“It’s a reality check to see how real their support is,” Jensen said. “When you see Harambe the gorilla getting the same level of support as third-party candidates, it shows that people are not that serious about voting for Gary Johnson. My guess is that he will end up getting two or three percent of the vote in the end.”
The polling firm often uses “joke independent candidates” as a measure of comparison, Jensen added. A “giant meteor intent on destroying the earth” actually won 13 percent of the vote in last month’s poll, and “deez nuts” once garnered eight percent of the vote.
The take-away is that Americans who say they are voting for third-party candidates will likely “get serious” in the long-term and vote for either Clinton or Trump, Jensen said.
When the poll excluded Harambe and asked respondents about the four real candidates running for president — Clinton, Trump, Libertarian Gary Johnson, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein — Johnson received six percent of the vote, while Stein received two percent.
Clinton had a five point lead over Trump at 46 percent.
Among other findings, the poll also discovered that 18 percent of respondents believe Hillary Clinton has ties to Lucifer and 36 percent would support putting her in prison. But Trump fared no better: 51 percent of respondents said he cannot be trusted on national security issues, and 62 percent think he should release his tax returns.
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