America would like Tina Fey to host The Daily Show, according to poll

When it comes to who Americans want to see replace Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, Tina Fey leads a field that includes Dennis Miller and Brian Williams.

As you may have heard, Daily Show host Jon Stewart will be leaving Comedy Central’s flagship fake news program, effective whenever he gets around to it. Several members of his staff, including longtime correspondents Samantha Bee and Jason Jones, have also decided to get out while the getting out’s good. Since joining the show in 1999, Stewart has developed a loyal following of people who appreciate his reliably funny brand of “journalism,” and replacing him will be no easy task.

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If Comedy Central is looking for ideas, it might want to check out at a recent poll taken by Quinnipiac University that asked people who they’d like to see replace Stewart. According to it, Americans would love to see Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock performer Tina Fey behind the Daily Show news desk.

First of all, some disclaimers: the Quinnipiac poll was taken by a sample of 1,286 registered voters from around the country, so it’s not like it’s the final word on the subject. Still, the results are still fun to chew on. Nineteen percent of those polled cast their vote for Fey. Her closest competition was Dennis Miller, who apparently made more of an impression during his stint on Weekend Update in the ’80s than I realized. Miller got 16% of the vote. John Oliver got 8%, Craig Ferguson and Brian Williams each got 7%, and Chelsea Handler brought up the rear with 5%.

There are some largely predictable disparities among the votes. While Fey did win the overall vote, for example, men gave 21% of their votes to Miller and only 15% to Fey. Women, meanwhile, gave a full 23% of their votes to Fey, nearly double the percentage of votes they gave to Miller. Still, the biggest disparity came when the votes were broken down by age group. Among people 18-34, a whopping 27% cast votes for Fey, the only instance when she received more votes than “Don’t Know/Not Applicable,” the real winner of this poll. Incidentally, people gave fewer and fewer votes to Fey the older they became, a fact you can interpret however you like.

Aside from Brian Williams, who I assume people voted for in the hopes that he would blow news stories amusingly out of proportion, all of these candidates have dependable comedy careers. Fey certainly seems like an excellent choice. She skewered plenty of politicians during her runs on both Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock—here is where I mention her Sarah Palin impression—so she could slide easily into Stewart’s vacant spot. Also, she has a gentle persona that makes it easy for people to like her. Plus she wears glasses, so you know she’s smart.

Of course, Fey is also doing, like, 13,000 other things right now, including executive producing Netflix’s Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, so it seems unlikely that she’d be willing to drop all that based on what 1,286 strangers think. Still, we can dream.

H/T The A.V. Club

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