In political studies, since the mid 20th-century, surveys have been conducted in order to construct historical rankings of the success of the presidents of the United States. Ranking systems are usually based on surveys of academic historians and political scientists, or popular opinion. The scholarly rankings focus on presidential achievements, leadership qualities, failures, and faults. Among such scholarly rankings, Abraham Lincoln is most often ranked as the best, while his predecessor James Buchanan is most often ranked as the worst. Popular-opinion polls typically focus on recent or well-known presidents.
A 1948 poll was conducted by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. of Harvard University. A 1962 survey was also conducted by Schlesinger, who surveyed 75 historians. Schlesinger's son, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., conducted another poll in 1996. The Chicago Tribune surveyed 49 historians in 1982.
The Siena College Research Institute (SCRI) began conducting surveys in 1982 and continued in 1990, 1994, 2002, 2010, 2018, and 2022 during the second year of the first term of each president since Ronald Reagan. These surveys collect presidential rankings from historians, political scientists, and presidential scholars in a range of attributes, abilities, and accomplishments. The 1994 survey placed only two presidents (Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt) above 80 points and two presidents (Andrew Johnson and Warren G. Harding) below 50 points.
In 1996, William J. Ridings Jr. and Stuart B. McIver conducted and published a poll and in 1997, an accompanying book on the poll results. 719 people took part in the poll, primarily academic historians and political scientists, although some politicians and celebrities also took part. Participants from every state were included and emphasis was placed upon getting input from female historians and "specialists in African American studies" as well as a few non-American historians. Poll respondents rated the presidents in five categories (leadership qualities, accomplishments, crisis management, political skill, appointments, and character and integrity) and the results were tabulated to create the overall ranking.
A 2005 presidential poll was conducted by James Lindgren for the Federalist Society and The Wall Street Journal. As in the 2000 survey, the editors sought to balance the opinions of liberals and conservatives, adjusting the results "to give Democratic- and Republican-leaning scholars equal weight". Although Franklin D. Roosevelt still ranked in the top three, editor James Taranto observed that Democratic-leaning scholars rated George W. Bush the sixth-worst president of all time while Republican scholars rated him the sixth-best, giving him a split-decision rating of "average". In 2008, The Times daily newspaper of London asked eight of its own "top international and political commentators" to rank all 42 presidents "in order of greatness".
The C-SPAN Survey of Presidential Leadership consists of rankings from a group of presidential historians and biographers. The C-SPAN Survey of Presidential Leadership has taken place four times: in 2000, 2009, 2017, and 2021. The 2021 survey was of 142 presidential historians, surveyed by C-SPAN's Academic Advisor Team, made up of Douglas G. Brinkley, Edna Greene Medford, Richard Norton Smith, and Amity Shlaes. In the survey, each historian rates each president on a scale of one ("not effective") to 10 ("very effective") on presidential leadership in ten categories: Public Persuasion, Crisis Leadership, Economic Management, Moral Authority, International Relations, Administrative Skills, Relations with Congress, Vision/Setting An Agenda, Pursued Equal Justice for All, and Performance Within the Context of His TimesâÂÂwith each category equally weighed. The results of all four C-SPAN surveys have been fairly consistent. Abraham Lincoln has taken the highest ranking in each survey and George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Theodore Roosevelt have always ranked in the top five while James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Franklin Pierce have been ranked at the bottom of all four surveys.
The 2011 survey, the first poll asking UK academics to rate American presidents, was conducted by the United States Presidency Centre (USPC) at the Institute for the Study of the Americas (located in the University of London's School of Advanced Study). This polled the opinion of British specialists in American history and politics to assess presidential performance. They also gave an interim assessment of Barack Obama, but his unfinished presidency was not included in the survey (had he been included, he would have attained eighth place overall).
In 2012, Newsweek asked a panel of historians to rank the ten best presidents since 1900. The results showed that historians had ranked Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson, Woodrow Wilson, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, and Obama as the best since that year. A 2015 poll administered by the American Political Science Association (APSA) among political scientists specializing in the American presidency had Abraham Lincoln in the top spot, with Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Truman, Eisenhower, Clinton, Andrew Jackson, and Wilson making the top 10. A 2016 survey of 71 British specialists by the Presidential History Network produced similar results to the 2011 USPC survey, with Obama placed in the top quartile.
A second Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey was sent to members of the Presidents and Executive Politics section of the APSA in 2018. It ranked Donald Trump for the first time, putting him in the last position. In the 2024 edition, Trump scored 10.92 out of 100, easily the worst, while self-identified Republican historians rated Trump in the bottom five. The study organizers observed a drop in recent Republican presidents' scores by speculating that respondents valued presidents that respected political and institutional norms. The first version of this poll was conducted in 2015.
The 2018 Siena poll of 157 presidential scholars reported George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Thomas Jefferson as the top five U.S. presidents, with SCRI director Don Levy stating, "The top five, Mount Rushmore plus FDR, is carved in granite with presidential historians." TrumpâÂÂentering the SCRI survey for the first timeâÂÂjoined Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan among the bottom three U.S. presidents. George W. Bush, whom presidential scholars had rated fifth lowest in the previous 2010 survey, improved in position to 12th lowest. The 2022 Siena poll had Franklin D. Roosevelt first, Lincoln second, and Washington third, with the bottom three as Trump, Buchanan, and Johnson.
The 2021 C-SPAN poll showed a continued recent rehabilitation of Ulysses S. Grant, showed George W. Bush improving, Barack Obama remaining high, and Trump with the fourth lowest ranking. After Trump's election to a non-consecutive second term, C-SPAN postponed its planned 2025 survey, explaining that "with a former president returning to office, conducting the survey now would turn it from historical analysis to punditry."
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<span class="nomobile">At leftmost column head, click "triangles" to view the in-office order of each president.</span><br /> <span class="nomobile">At each survey column head, click on "triangles" to view the ranking order for each president in that survey.</span> Scroll in the center of the table. The headers will remain in view. If you see a "[disable]" button to the top left of the table, click on it to display the whole width of the table without needing to scroll.
The MurrayâÂÂBlessing 1982 survey asked historians whether they were liberal or conservative on domestic, social, and economic issues. The two groups had only small differences in ranking the best and worst presidents. Both groups agreed on the composition of nine of the top ten presidents (they were split over the inclusion of either Dwight D. Eisenhower or Lyndon B. Johnson) and six of the worst seven (split over Calvin Coolidge or Jimmy Carter).
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In September/October 2010, the United States Presidency Centre (USPC) of the Institute for the Study of the Americas at the University of London surveyed 47 British specialists on American history and politics. Presidents were rated from 1 to 10 in five categories:
William Henry Harrison (1841) and James Garfield (1881) were not rated because they died shortly after taking office. Barack Obama (2009âÂÂ2017) ranked 8th in interim ranking as of January 2011, but was not counted in the final results (and thus did not affect the rankings of other presidents) because he had yet to complete a term. Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933âÂÂ1945) came in first overall and in the categories of vision/agenda, domestic leadership, and foreign policy leadership. Washington came in first for moral authority; Lincoln for his legacy. Morgan believes it is likely that Roosevelt's ranking (which only marginally surpassed Lincoln's) rose because the poll was conducted during the worst economic troubles since the 1930s.
Of presidents since 1960, only Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama (in interim results) placed in the top ten; Obama was the highest-ranked president since Harry S. Truman (1945âÂÂ1953). Most of the other recent presidents held middling positions, although George W. Bush placed in the bottom ten, the lowest-ranked president since Warren G. Harding (1921âÂÂ1923). Lyndon B. Johnson (1963âÂÂ1969) would have been placed "much higher in recognition of his civil rights achievement but for the corrosive effect of Vietnam on his foreign policy and moral authority scores". As with U.S. polls, the bottom five (other than Harding) were president before and after the Civil War. One of the more significant differences from American polls is the relatively low ranking of John F. Kennedy (1961âÂÂ1963), who placed fifteenth. British academics "seemingly faulted JFK for the gap between his rhetoric and his substantive achievements as president."
Each category is ranked according to its averaged numerical score (in parentheses). Source:
In 2016, the Presidential History Network surveyed 71 named British and Irish specialists. The questions were the same as in the USPC survey, which was directed by some of the same people. Some respondents did not rate presidents that they were not familiar with. The minimum number of responses (62) were for the rather obscure and inconsequential presidents Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, and Benjamin Harrison. 69âÂÂ70 rated all recent presidents, from Franklin D. Roosevelt on.
Each category is ranked according to its averaged numerical score. Source:
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On February 13, 2019, Siena released its sixth presidential poll. The poll was initiated in 1982 and occurs one year into the term of each new president. It is currently a survey of 157 presidential scholars across a range of leadership parameters. The ranking awarded the top five spots to George Washington, Franklin Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Thomas Jefferson, in keeping with prior surveys. Washington had been ranked fourth in all previous surveys, and Franklin Roosevelt first.
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The Siena College Research Institute released their seventh poll results on June 22, 2022. The best 10% and worst 10% remain unchanged from their 2018 poll (top five: F. D. Roosevelt, Lincoln, Washington, T. Roosevelt, Jefferson; bottom five: A. Johnson, Buchanan, Trump, Harding, Pierce). 41% of the scholars polled said that if a president were to be added to Mount Rushmore, it should be FDR. 63% believed that the president should be elected by a national popular vote; whereas, 17% supported the Electoral College.
A year into his term, Joe Biden entered the ranking in the second quartile, at nineteenth place out of 45. Among recent presidents, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama moved up in the rankings, while George W. Bush and Donald Trump moved down, though part of the downward shift was due to the addition of a new president to the poll. Counting from the other direction, Trump remained unchanged at third place from last. The changes were relatively small (one or two places), apart from Obama, who moved up six places (14%) to eleventh place, in the first quartile. Notable shifts among earlier presidents included the continuing rehabilitation of Lyndon Johnson, up 8 places into the first quartile, and of Ulysses Grant, up 3 places (up 8 in the individual evaluations) into the second quartile; and the lessening appreciation of Andrew Jackson, down 4 places to the median (down 7, into the third quartile, in the individual evaluations); Ronald Reagan, down 5 places, remaining in the second quartile; and Zachary Taylor, down 6 places into the fourth quartile.
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In May 2019, Alvin Tillery of the Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy at Northwestern University and Christina Greer of Fordham University "conducted a poll of 113 academic researchers and asked them to rate the 14 modern presidents on both their overall leadership and rhetoric on diversity and inclusion using a scale ranging from 0 to 100." Survey respondents were significantly more liberal than the national average, "with only 13 percent of the respondents describing themselves as either moderate, slightly conservative, or conservative."
A Gallup poll taken on November 19âÂÂ21, 2010, asked 1,037 Americans to say, based on what they know or remember about the nine most recent former presidents, whether they approve or disapprove of how each handled his job in office.
A Gallup poll about presidential greatness taken February 2âÂÂ5, 2011, asked 1,015 American adults the following question: "Who do you regard as the greatest United States president?"
In addition, "Other" received 1%, "None" received 1% and "No opinion" received 5%.
A Vision Critical/Angus Reid Public Opinion poll taken on February 18âÂÂ19, 2011, asked 1,010 respondents about 11 former presidents plus the current president and whether each was a good or bad president.
A Public Policy Polling poll taken between September 8âÂÂ11, 2011, asked 665 American voters whether they held favorable or unfavorable views of how each of the nine most recent former presidents performed their job.
A Gallup poll taken November 7âÂÂ10, 2013, asked 1,039 American adults the following question: "How do you think each of the following presidents will go down in historyâÂÂas an outstanding president, above average, average, below average, or poor?".
A Quinnipiac University poll taken June 24âÂÂ30, 2014, asked 1,446 American registered voters who they believed were the best and worst presidents since World War II.
Two and a half years later, a Quinnipiac University poll taken January 20âÂÂ25, 2017, asked 1,190 American voters who they believed were the best and worst presidents since World War II.
Including President Donald Trump for the first time, a Morning Consult poll taken February 9âÂÂ10, 2017, asked 1,791 American registered voters who they believed were the best and worst presidents since World War II.
A Quinnipiac University poll taken March 3âÂÂ5, 2018, asked 1,122 American voters who they believed were the best and worst presidents since World War II.
A Gallup poll taken January 4âÂÂ15, 2021, asked 1,023 American adults the following question: "How do you think each of the following presidents will go down in historyâÂÂas an outstanding president, above average, average, below average, or poor?"
YouGov took a survey of 1,000 U.S. adult citizens between November 20âÂÂ27, 2023. Respondents were asked: "How would you rate the president listed below?" There was a margin of error of 4.1% in the poll.
A Gallup poll taken December 2âÂÂ18, 2024, asked the following question: "How do you think each of the following presidents will go down in historyâÂÂas an outstanding president, above average, average, below average, or poor?"
In November 2014, Henry L. Roediger III and K. Andrew DeSoto published a study in the journal Science asking research subjects to name as many presidents as possible. They reported data from three generations as well as from an online survey conducted .
In July 2021, a survey was taken on the memorability of U.S. presidents by name and facial recognition.
Gerard Baker, U.S. editor for The Times, wrote in 2008 that "the 42 American presidents fall into a well-established, bell-curve or normal distribution on a chart â a handful of outstanding ones, a handful of duds, and a lot of so-sos. I couldn't, in all honesty therefore, really say that number 13 on the list is that much better than number 30." Political scientist Walter Dean Burnham described "dichotomous or schizoid profiles" of presidents, making some hard to classify in his opinion. Historian Alan Brinkley said "there are presidents who could be considered both failures and great or near great (for example, Wilson, [Lyndon B.] Johnson, Nixon)". Historian and political scientist James MacGregor Burns observed of Nixon: "How can one evaluate such an idiosyncratic president, so brilliant and so morally lacking?"
David Herbert Donald, a noted biographer of Abraham Lincoln, relates that when he met John F. Kennedy in 1961, Kennedy voiced his deep dissatisfaction and resentment with historians who had rated some of his predecessors. Kennedy remarked, "No one has a right to grade a presidentâÂÂeven poor James BuchananâÂÂwho has not sat in his chair, examined the mail and information that came across his desk, and learned why he made his decisions." Historian and political scientist Julian E. Zelizer has argued that traditional presidential rankings explain little concerning actual presidential history and that they are "weak mechanisms for evaluating what has taken place in the White House." The broadly static nature of the rankings over multiple decades has also been called into question by some critics, particularly given the frequent exposure of previously unknown material about American government. The first British survey, published in 2011, places some small government advocates higher than recent U.S. surveys have: Thomas Jefferson at 4, Ronald Reagan at 8, and Andrew Jackson at 9 (compared to 7th, 10th, and 13th in C-SPAN 2009).
In 2002, Ron Walters, former director of the University of Maryland's African American Leadership Institute, stated that ranking based on the presidents' ability to balance the interests of the majority and those of excluded groups was practical in respect to American debate on racial politics. Presidents have traditionally been ranked on personal qualities and their leadership ability to solve problems that move the nation in a positive direction. Walters stated that there was a qualitative difference between presidential evaluations from white and African-American intellectuals. He gives as an example of this difference a comparison between two contemporary studies, a 1996 New York Times poll by Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., where 31 white historians and one black historian ranked presidents as "Great", "Near Great", "High Average", "Average", "Below Average", or "Failure", and a survey performed by professors Hanes Walton Jr. and Robert Smith and featured in their book American Politics and the African American Quest for Universal Freedom, where 44 African-American political scientists and historians ranked presidents as "White Supremacist", "Racist", "Racially Neutral", "Racially Ambivalent", or "Antiracist".
A 2012 analysis by Mark Zachary Taylor faulted presidential surveys with "partisan bias and subjective judgments", suggesting an algorithm to rank of the presidents based on objectively measurable economic statistics. His algorithm placed Franklin D. Roosevelt as the best president for the economy, followed by Warren G. Harding, Rutherford B. Hayes, and William McKinley (all three tied for second). The worst-ranked presidents were Herbert Hoover and Martin Van Buren (tied).
In 2010, Alvin S. Felzenberg criticized what he sees as a liberal bias in presidential rankings. In particular, he ranked Ronald Reagan in third place, substantially higher than averaged rankings. In reviewing his book, Michael Genovese said that "Felzenberg is upsetâÂÂwith some justificationâÂÂat the liberal bias he sees as so prevalent in the ranking of U.S. presidents by historians and political scientists. To remedy this, he has provided a counter to the liberal bias with a conservative bias. In doing so, he commits all the sins of which he accuses liberals. This book is a mirror image of the work he finds so troubling. ... It is unscientific, impressionistic, and highly subjective." The historically low rankings of Donald Trump during the first year of the first Trump presidency was met with mixed approval given that historical ranking is largely based on long term effects of a president's decision, which could not be reliably assessed in a first year.
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