War in Ukraine, refugees fleeing the Democratic Republic of Congo, executions in Myanmar, millions of homes in India destroyed by floods, and surging inflation that threatens American job security—this is just a sampling of recent headlines.

We know the world needs change. But, who should lead that change?

Today, humanity faces more existential threats than ever before, leaving many of us scared about the kind of world our children could grow up in. We know the world needs change. But, who should lead that change?

Halcyon was curious, if given the choice, who do people believe is most influential toward ensuring a brighter future for humanity: Elon Musk, President Biden, or Pope Francis? We launched a campaign to find out and break down the surprising campaign results. 

Campaign Strategy

The campaign asked users who they would trust most to ensure a brighter future for humanity between Elon Musk, President Joe Biden, and the Pope. 

The strategy:

1. Landing page: Halcyon created a landing page asking users to choose between Elon Musk, President Joe Biden, and the Pope.
2. Social media campaign: a social media campaign was initiated to drive users to Halcyon’s landing page.
3. Survey: to understand why people chose their candidate, users were asked to answer 10 survey questions based on their vote.

Campaign Results 

After users voted in the poll, we asked them to answer some survey questions about the person they voted for so we might better understand why they made their choice.

Below you will find data that expresses why users chose to vote for the person they did.

Elon Musk 

70.9% strongly agreed that Musk “has the courage to fight corruption and special interest” (beating Joe Biden at 62.4% and Pope Francis at 65.4%).

37.2% of voters strongly agreed that Musk’s “faith life will sustain him on difficult days ahead”, (Biden received 59.7% and the Pope a majority of 77.3%).

72.3% of people who voted for Musk agreed that he is a “better person” than the other two candidates (while only 54.5% went to Biden and 62.7% for the Pope).

63.3% of people strongly agreed that Musk “takes his role seriously” (losing to Biden, who scored 79%, and the Pope who scored 76.8%). 

President Biden

Only 10.95% of the votes went to Joe Biden, putting him just a few percentage points above the Pope. 

59.3% of the voters thought that Biden “engaged in the issues” that they were “most passionate about” (higher than Musk’s 48.6% and the Pope’s 53%).

79% voted for Biden and strongly agreed that he “takes his role seriously”. This was the highest percentage of “strongly agree” answers to any of the poll questions across all three candidates. 

In fact, Biden received “strongly agree” responses above 54% for every question, whereas the Pope and Elon Musk both received “strongly agree” responses below 50% on more than one question.

Pope Francis

7.26% of people voted for the Pope, the lowest number of all the candidates.

48.1% of people agreed that Pope Francis “understands the problems in the world and is the best person to address them” (Elon Musk received 56.6% and Joe Biden got 61.4%.)

64.3% of voters strongly agree that the Pope “knows where humanity needs to go” (with Musk at 58.2% and Biden at 55.5%).

68.6% said that the Pope has a “strong sense of conscience” that they can trust (narrowly beating Biden who got 67.9% of these votes, while Musk only received 53.7% of the votes).

With 77.3%, the Pope garnered the most votes for having a “faith life will sustain him on difficult days ahead” (Biden received 59.7% and Musk had the lowest votes at 37.2%).

With 67.6% of votes agreeing that Pope Francis “cares for people and will ensure nobody is left behind”, he again beat out Biden and Musk who received 63.8% and 46.2%, respectively.