Historical rankings of presidents of the United States

• 1. Introduction

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  Historical rankings of presidents of the United States have been compiled since the middle of the 20th century, and two names keep turning up at opposite ends of the scholarly lists. Abraham Lincoln is most often ranked the best president. His predecessor James Buchanan is most often ranked the worst. The rankings come mostly from surveys of academic historians and political scientists, and sometimes from popular opinion. Scholars weigh achievements, leadership qualities, failures, and faults. Popular polls usually focus on recent or well-known presidents. Behind those simple lists sit harder questions. Who gets asked, and what exactly are they scoring? Do liberal and conservative scholars see the presidents differently? Why do some reputations climb while others slide? And how far does the public's verdict part from the experts'?

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• 2. Pioneers and Press

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  Harvard historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. ran a poll of the presidents in 1948, and he returned to the task in 1962, when he surveyed 75 historians. His son, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., conducted another poll in 1996. The Chicago Tribune joined in with its own survey of 49 historians in 1982.

  In 1996, William J. Ridings Jr. and Stuart B. McIver ran a far larger poll, and in 1997 they published a book of the results. A total of 719 people took part, mostly academic historians and political scientists, with some politicians and celebrities mixed in. Participants came from every state. The organizers pressed for input from female historians, from "specialists in African American studies", and from a few non-American historians. Respondents scored leadership qualities, accomplishments, crisis management, political skill, appointments, and character and integrity. Those scores were then tabulated into a single ranking.

  Newspapers and magazines ran their own versions. In 2008, The Times of London asked eight of its own "top international and political commentators" to rank all 42 presidents "in order of greatness". In 2012, Newsweek asked a panel of historians for the ten best presidents since 1900. The panel named 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. Johnson sat third on that list, and his reputation would keep rising in later scholarly surveys.

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• 3. The C-SPAN Scorecard

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  The C-SPAN Survey of Presidential Leadership has been held four times, in 2000, 2009, 2017, and 2021. Its respondents are presidential historians and biographers. The 2021 round drew on 142 of them. It was run by C-SPAN's Academic Advisor Team, made up of Douglas G. Brinkley, Edna Greene Medford, Richard Norton Smith, and Amity Shlaes.

  Each historian scores each president from one, meaning "not effective", to 10, meaning "very effective". The scoring covers 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. Every category carries equal weight.

  Across all four rounds, the results have stayed fairly steady. Lincoln has taken first place in each one. George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Theodore Roosevelt have always landed in the top five. James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and Franklin Pierce have sat at the bottom every time.

  A single president can look very different category by category. In the 2021 tables, Lyndon B. Johnson ranks second in relations with Congress and second in pursuing equal justice for all. He drops to 39th in international relations.

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• 4. The Siena Surveys

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  The Siena College Research Institute began its presidential surveys in 1982 and repeated them in 1990, 1994, 2002, 2010, 2018, and 2022. Since Ronald Reagan, each round has been held during the second year of a president's first term. Historians, political scientists, and presidential scholars score every president on a range of attributes. Those include background, imagination, integrity, luck, willingness to take risks, ability to compromise, handling of the economy, and avoiding crucial mistakes.

  The 1994 round put only two presidents above 80 points, Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Only two fell below 50, Andrew Johnson and Warren G. Harding.

  On the 13th of February 2019, Siena released its sixth presidential poll, a survey of 157 presidential scholars. Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Thomas Jefferson took the top five places. Institute director Don Levy said, "The top five, Mount Rushmore plus FDR, is carved in granite with presidential historians." Donald Trump entered the survey for the first time and joined Andrew Johnson and Buchanan as the bottom three.

  On the 22nd of June 2022, the institute released its seventh poll. Franklin D. Roosevelt placed first, Lincoln second, and Washington third. Trump, Buchanan, and Johnson filled the bottom three. The best and worst 10 percent were unchanged from 2018, and the bottom five were Johnson, Buchanan, Trump, Harding, and Pierce.

  The 2022 poll also asked scholars about civics. If one more president were added to Mount Rushmore, 41 percent said it should be Franklin D. Roosevelt. Some 63 percent believed the president should be elected by national popular vote, while 17 percent supported the Electoral College. A year into his term, Joe Biden entered the ranking at nineteenth place out of 45, in the second quartile.

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• 5. Reputations in Motion

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  The 2021 C-SPAN results extended a recent rehabilitation of Ulysses S. Grant. They also showed George W. Bush improving, while Barack Obama stayed high. Bush's climb shows in the Siena numbers too. Scholars had rated him fifth lowest in the 2010 survey, and by 2018 he stood 12th lowest.

  The 2022 Siena poll recorded further drift. Most changes were small, only one or two places. Obama was the exception, rising six places, or 14 percent, to eleventh and into the first quartile. Lyndon Johnson went up eight places into the first quartile. Grant went up three places into the second quartile, and eight places in the individual evaluations. George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton also moved up. George W. Bush and Trump moved down, though part of that shift came from adding a new president to the poll.

  Some reputations fell. Andrew Jackson slid four places to the median, and seven places in the individual evaluations, into the third quartile. Ronald Reagan dropped five places yet stayed in the second quartile. Zachary Taylor fell six places, into the fourth quartile.

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• 6. The British View

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  In September and October 2010, the United States Presidency Centre at the University of London's Institute for the Study of the Americas surveyed 47 British specialists on American history and politics. Known as the 2011 survey, it was the first poll to ask UK academics to rate American presidents. Presidents were scored from 1 to 10 in five categories: vision and agenda-setting, domestic leadership, foreign policy leadership, moral authority, and the positive historical significance of a legacy.

  William Henry Harrison and James Garfield were left out because they died shortly after taking office. Obama held eighth place in an interim ranking as of January 2011. That placement did not count in the final results, because he had yet to complete a term.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt came first overall, and also first in vision, domestic leadership, and foreign policy leadership. Washington led on moral authority, and Lincoln on legacy. An observer named Morgan believes Roosevelt's narrow margin over Lincoln may owe something to the timing, since the poll came during the worst economic troubles since the 1930s.

  Among presidents since 1960, only Reagan and Obama, in his interim result, reached the top ten. Obama was the highest-ranked president since Harry S. Truman. George W. Bush placed in the bottom ten, the lowest since Harding. Johnson would have 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 in American polls, the bottom five, apart from Harding, served either before or after the Civil War.

  John F. Kennedy came fifteenth, noticeably lower than in American polls. British academics "seemingly faulted JFK for the gap between his rhetoric and his substantive achievements as president."

  In 2016, the Presidential History Network surveyed 71 named British and Irish specialists, using the same questions. The results were similar, with Obama placed in the top quartile. Respondents skipped presidents they did not know well. The fewest responses, 62, went to Rutherford B. Hayes, Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, and Benjamin Harrison.

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• 7. Politics and Verdicts

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  The Murray-Blessing survey of 1982 asked historians whether they were liberal or conservative on domestic, social, and economic issues. It heard from 190 liberals and 50 conservatives. The two groups differed only slightly at the extremes. They agreed on nine of the top ten presidents, splitting over Dwight D. Eisenhower or Lyndon B. Johnson. They agreed on six of the worst seven, splitting over Calvin Coolidge or Jimmy Carter.

  James Lindgren conducted a 2005 poll for the Federalist Society and The Wall Street Journal. As in the 2000 survey, the editors balanced liberal and conservative opinion, adjusting the results "to give Democratic- and Republican-leaning scholars equal weight". Franklin D. Roosevelt still ranked in the top three. Editor James Taranto noted that Democratic-leaning scholars rated George W. Bush the sixth-worst president of all time. Republican scholars rated him the sixth-best, which produced a split-decision rating of "average".

  A 2015 poll administered by the American Political Science Association, among political scientists specializing in the presidency, put Lincoln first. Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Truman, Eisenhower, Clinton, Andrew Jackson, and Wilson completed its top ten. A second Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey went out in 2018 to members of the association's Presidents and Executive Politics section. It ranked Donald Trump for the first time and put him last.

  In the 2024 edition, Trump scored 10.92 out of 100, easily the worst. Self-identified Republican historians rated him in the bottom five. The organizers also saw scores fall for recent Republican presidents. They speculated that respondents valued presidents who respected political and institutional norms.

  In May 2019, Alvin Tillery of Northwestern University's Center for the Study of Diversity and Democracy and Christina Greer of Fordham University polled 113 academic researchers. Respondents rated the 14 modern presidents from 0 to 100 on overall leadership and on their rhetoric about diversity and inclusion. The respondents were significantly more liberal than the national average, with only 13 percent calling themselves moderate, slightly conservative, or conservative. Franklin D. Roosevelt led the combined list at 83, ahead of Obama at 77 and Lyndon B. Johnson at 69. On diversity and inclusion alone, Obama led at 75, followed by Clinton at 54 and Carter at 43. Trump finished last on both lists, with 11 overall and 9 on diversity.

  After Trump's election to a non-consecutive second term, C-SPAN postponed its planned 2025 survey. It explained that "with a former president returning to office, conducting the survey now would turn it from historical analysis to punditry."

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• 8. The Public's Verdict

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  A Gallup poll taken from the 19th to the 21st of November 2010 asked 1,037 Americans whether they approved of how each of the nine most recent former presidents handled the job. John F. Kennedy drew 85 percent approval and 10 percent disapproval. Ronald Reagan followed at 74 percent approval. Richard Nixon sat at the bottom, with 29 percent approval and 65 percent disapproval.

  Between the 2nd and the 5th of February 2011, Gallup asked 1,015 American adults a different question: who is the greatest president? Reagan led with 19 percent, then Lincoln at 14, Clinton at 13, Kennedy at 11, Washington at 10, and Franklin Roosevelt at 8. Scholars would not recognize that order. In the 2022 Siena poll, Reagan placed eighteenth and Clinton fourteenth.

  Gallup also asked how each president will go down in history. In November 2013, it put the question to 1,039 adults. Kennedy had the highest weighted average, 3.92, with 18 percent calling him outstanding. Nixon had the lowest, 2.38. Gallup repeated the question in January 2021, with 1,023 adults. Nixon fell to 2.14 and Trump scored 2.30, with 47 percent rating him poor. In December 2024, Kennedy scored 3.77, Nixon 2.14, and Biden 2.31.

  A YouGov survey of 1,000 adult citizens, taken from the 20th to the 27th of November 2023, showed how polarizing some presidents remain. Reagan drew 24 percent outstanding. Trump drew 20 percent outstanding and 38 percent poor. Another 29 percent were not sure how to rate Lyndon B. Johnson. Quinnipiac University polls in 2014, 2017, and 2018, and a Morning Consult poll in February 2017, asked voters to name the best and worst presidents since World War II.

  In November 2014, Henry L. Roediger III and K. Andrew DeSoto published a study in the journal Science. They asked research subjects to name as many presidents as they could. Obama was named by 100 percent, Washington by 94 percent, Lincoln by 88 percent, and Kennedy by 83 percent. At the far end, Millard Fillmore was named by 8 percent, and Franklin Pierce by just 7 percent.

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