Historical rankings of presidents of the United States

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 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, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, 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". Franklin D. Roosevelt still ranked in the top three, but editor James Taranto noted 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 Times—with 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 then-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 Barack 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 George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Bill Clinton, Andrew Jackson, and Woodrow 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 Barack Obama placed in the first 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 noted 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 US presidents, with SCRI director Don Levy stating, "The top five, Mount Rushmore plus FDR, is carved in granite with presidential historians". Donald Trump—entering the SCRI survey for the first time—joined Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan among the bottom three US 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 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 Grant, showed George W. Bush improving, Obama remaining high, and Trump with the fourth lowest ranking.
Within each column
At leftmost column head, click "triangles" to view the in-office order of each president. At each survey column head, click on "triangles" to view the ranking order for each president in that survey. Scroll in the center of the table. The headers will remain in view. To instead display the whole table at once, click "[disable]" at top left.
The Murray–Blessing 1982 survey asked historians whether they were liberal or conservative on domestic, social, and economic issues. The table below shows that 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 (and were split over the inclusion of either Lyndon B. Johnson or Dwight D. Eisenhower) and six of the worst seven (split over Jimmy Carter or Calvin Coolidge).
Source:
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 (2009–) 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 (1933–1945) 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 (in interim results) Barack Obama placed in the top ten; Obama was the highest-ranked president since Harry Truman (1945–1953). Most of the other recent presidents held middling positions, though George W. Bush placed in the bottom ten, the lowest-ranked president since Warren Harding (1921–1923). Lyndon Johnson (1963–1969) "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 US 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 (1961–1963), 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 Hayes, Arthur, Cleveland, and Benjamin Harrison. 69–70 rated all recent presidents, from FDR on.
Each category is ranked according to its averaged numerical score. Source:
Source:
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.
(The numbers below do not match the source where there are ties in the rankings. They have instead been counted as ties are in other polls (e.g. 26, 27, 27, 27, 30 rather than 26, 27, 27, 27, 28), so that all categories span the range 1–44.)
Source:
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.
Source: Siena College Research Institute: 2022 Survey of U.S. Presidents
Professors Hanes Walton Jr. and Robert Smith in their book American Politics and the African American Quest for Universal Freedom, ranked presidents for their views and actions on the topic of race. Presidents can be ranked twice since "White supremacist" refers only to personal belief; while the other categories incorporate policy actions as well.
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 19–21, 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 2–5, 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 Public Policy Polling poll taken between September 8–11, 2011, asked 665 American voters, based on what they know or remember about the nine then-most recent former presidents, whether they hold favorable or unfavorable views of how each handled his job in office.
A Vision Critical/Angus Reid Public Opinion poll taken on February 18–19, 2011, asked 1,010 respondents about 11 former presidents plus the current president and whether each was a good or bad president.
A Gallup poll taken November 7–10, 2013, asked 1,039 American adults the following question: "How do you think each of the following presidents will go down in history—as an outstanding president, above average, average, below average, or poor?".
A Quinnipiac University poll taken June 24–30, 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 20–25, 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 9–10, 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 3–5, 2018, asked 1,122 American voters who they believed were the best and worst presidents since World War II.
A Gallup poll taken January 4–15, 2021, asked 1,023 American adults the following question: "How do you think each of the following presidents will go down in history—as an outstanding president, above average, average, below average, or poor?"
A Gallup poll taken December 2–18, 2024, asked the following question: "How do you think each of the following presidents will go down in history—as 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 2014. The percentage of participants in the online survey sample who could name each president was the following:
In July 2021, a survey was taken on the memorability of U.S. presidents by name and facial recognition. The rate of memorability for the name recognition survey was:
Gerard Baker, US editor for The Times, writes, "the 42 American presidents fall into a well-established, bell-curve or normal distribution on a chart – 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, 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, 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 president—even poor James Buchanan—who 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, 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 US surveys have: Thomas Jefferson at 4, Ronald Reagan at 8, and Andrew Jackson at 9 (compare 7, 10 and 13 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 Roosevelt as the best president for the economy, followed by Harding, Hayes and McKinley tied for second. The worst-ranked presidents were Hoover and Van Buren, tied.
Alvin S. Felzenberg has criticized what he sees as a liberal bias in presidential rankings. In particular, he ranks Ronald Reagan in third place, substantially higher than averaged rankings. In reviewing his 2010 book, Michael Genovese says, "Felzenberg is upset—with some justification—at 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."
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