Poll: Jimmy Fallon Most Liked Among Top Three Late Night Host, Also Considered Least Leftist

By Brandon Morse | 8:30 PM on March 19, 2019

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FILE - In this Friday, Sept. 16, 2016, file photo, Jimmy Fallon talks during a taping of "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon," in New York. U.S. President Donald Trump is telling Fallon to “be a man” and stop “whimpering” about the personal anguish he felt over the backlash he received after messing up Trump’s hair during a 2016 campaign appearance on Fallon’s late-night talk show. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File)

America doesn’t watch late-night comedy hour shows for the most part anymore, but television offers a myriad of late-night show hosts. Among the top three, however, it’s interesting that the one considered least leftist is the most liked.

According to a Morning Consult/Hollywood Reporter Poll, NBC’s Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon was found to be the most liked out of all the late night show hosts that television has to offer:

Americans seem to have the most favorable impression of Jimmy Fallon among late-night personalities, with 58 percent of respondents saying they generally like the host. The Tonight Showhost is followed by ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel (56 percent favorable), TBS’ Conan O’Brien (48 percent), CBS’ Stephen Colbert (44 percent) and NBC’s Seth Meyers (40 percent).

Of the big three (Fallon, Colbert, Kimmel), however, most Americans find Fallon the least leftist of the bunch at 40 percent, but not by much. Colbert and Kimmel rank in at 42 percent. Not the largest difference, but an interesting development nonetheless.

When it comes to the late-night show host talking politics, only Colbert seems to be appreciated when he expresses his political opinions at 30 percent on “very favorable,” while only 19 percent say they don’t enjoy it. He’s also the most watched of the bunch, passing up Fallon for the first time since the shows began.

Meanwhile, 29 percent consider it “very favorable” when Fallon does, with 24 percent saying they’d rather he keep quiet on those matters. Kimmel falls into around the same range as Fallon, with 23 percent saying they don’t like it when he speaks up on political matters.

America generally has a sense that late-night show hosts are on the left end of the political spectrum, a development that THR considers unsurprising:

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Americans overwhelmingly think that the majority of late-night hosts in general tend to lean more to the left politically. Some 50 percent of respondents said late-night hosts are “more liberal” while 12 percent thought these personalities were neutral and 11 percent deemed them “more conservative.”

This might be why most of America doesn’t actually watch late-night comedy shows. According to the THR/Morning Consult poll, 61 percent of American doesn’t watch Fallon, Kimmel, or Colbert. Only 39 percent seem to tune in.