23 percent of millennials would rather die in a meteor strike than live through a Clinton or Trump presidency

Given the choice between "a giant meteor striking Earth and extinguishing all human life" or living through a Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton presidency, nearly one-fourth of millennials claim to prefer obliteration by space rock.

A new poll by UMass-Lowell/Odyssey Millennials released Tuesday revealed that 23 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 35 claim they'd rather see the end of the human race than a presidency from either major-party nominee. More popular than death, though, was seeing Obama appoint himself to a lifetime term (39 percent) or selecting the next president by random lottery (26 percent).

Now, of course, the poll question was cheeky — and millennials' responses probably shouldn't be taken all that literally. "We do not take our respondents at their word that they are earnestly interested in seeing the world end, but we do take their willingness to rank two constitutional crises and a giant meteor ahead of these two candidates with startling frequency as a sign of displeasure and disaffection with the candidates and the 2016 election," said Joshua Dyck, co-director of UMass-Lowell’s Center for Public Opinion.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.

Sign up

The poll surveyed 1,247 millennials online from Oct. 10-13, and its margin of error was plus or minus 3.2 percentage points. Sarcasm does not appear to be factored into the margin of error.