Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman Top List of 'Most-Admired' Senior Americans

With the 2016 election season in full swing, two of America's most admired seniors are front and center on opposing sides of the political fence and presidential campaigns.

Americans say that Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman are the most admired public figures over age 75, according to a survey jointly undertaken by Hart Research Associates and McGinn and Company.

That popularity has not gone unnoticed by Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton as they continue to pursue their parties' nominations. Morgan Freeman is narrating ads for Hillary Clinton while Clint Eastwood has spoken at private Donald Trump events.

The two actors' political leanings are reflected in the survey with 29% of Democrats selecting Freeman as the most admired and 33% of Republicans selecting Eastwood. The most-admired person of all for the Republicans is George H.W. Bush and for the Democrats is Jimmy Carter, which underscores that politics runs deep even when it comes to the most-admired seniors.

In the survey conducted online with a cross section of adults nationwide, Americans were asked to select from a list of 23 role models for a long life. The top ten scorers were Clint Eastwood (23%), Morgan Freeman (21%), Jimmy Carter (19%), George H.W. Bush (17%), Billy Graham (16%), Warren Buffett (13%), Barbara Walters (9%), Nancy Reagan (9%), Ruth Bader Ginsburg (7%) and James Earl Jones (7%). (The survey was conducted before Nancy Reagan passed away.)

"The fascinating element of the list of most-admired older Americans is that they are as diverse as America and yet, put them all in a room, and you would see they capture the genius and greatness of the country," said Peter D. Hart, of Hart Research Associates who conducted the survey.

The survey was conducted online by Survey Monkey from December 24-30, 2015, among a national sample of 2,709 adults ages 18 and over.