Historical rankings of presidents of the United States

Sculptor Gutzon Borglum and President Calvin Coolidge selected Washington, Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Lincoln to appear on Mount Rushmore.

In political science, historical rankings of United States Presidents are surveys conducted in order to construct rankings of the success of individuals who have served as President of the United States. Ranking systems are usually based on surveys of academic historians and political scientists or popular opinion. The rankings focus on the presidential achievements, leadership qualities, failures and faults (such as corruption).

General findings

George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt are consistently ranked at the top of the lists. Often ranked just below those three are Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt. The remaining top 10 ranks are often rounded out by James Madison, Andrew Jackson, Woodrow Wilson, Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy tend to score highly in popular opinion polls, but rank highly less often in polls of historians. The bottom ranks often include Franklin Pierce, Warren G. Harding, and James Buchanan. Two presidents, William Henry Harrison and James A. Garfield, died shortly after entering office, and are sometimes not included in the rankings.

Exceptions

Some presidents present special problems because their foreign policy success or failure stands in contradiction to their domestic policy failure or success. Political scientist Walter Dean Burnham noted the "dichotomous or schizoid profiles." Historian Alan Brinkley said, "There are presidents who could be considered both failures and great or near great (for example, Nixon)". James MacGregor Burns observed of Nixon, "How can one evaluate such an idiosyncratic president, so brilliant and so morally lacking?"

Notable scholar surveys

Abraham Lincoln is often considered the greatest president for his leadership during the American Civil War and his eloquence in speeches such as the Gettysburg Address.

Andrew Johnson routinely receives poor marks due to his handling of Reconstruction.

The 1948 poll was conducted by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. of Harvard University. The 1962 survey was also conducted by Schlesinger, who surveyed 75 historians; the results of this survey are given in the book The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents by William A. Degregorio. Schlesinger's son Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. conducted another poll in 1996, not currently on the chart below.

The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents also gives the results of the 1982 survey, a poll of 49 historians conducted by the Chicago Tribune. A notable difference from the 1962 Schlesinger poll was the ranking of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was ranked #22 in 1962, but was ranked #9 in the 1982 survey.

The Siena Research Institute of Siena College conducted surveys in 1982, 1990, 1994, and 2002. The 1994 survey placed only two Presidents, Franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln, above 80 points, and placed two Presidents, Andrew Johnson and Warren G. Harding, below 50 points.

The 1996 column shows the results from a poll conducted from 1989 to 1996 by William J. Ridings, Jr. and Stuart B. McIver, and published in the book Rating the Presidents: A Ranking of U.S. leaders, from the Great and Honorable to the Dishonest and Incompetent. More than 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, character & integrity), and the results were tabulated to create the overall ranking.

A 2000 survey by The Wall Street Journal consisted of an "ideologically balanced group of 132 prominent professors of history, law, and political science". This poll sought to include an equal number of liberals and conservatives in the survey, as the editors argued that previous polls were dominated by either one group or the other, but never balanced. According to the editors, this poll included responses from more women, minorities, and young professors than the 1996 Schlesinger poll. The editors noted that the results of their poll were "remarkably similar" to the 1996 Schlesinger poll, with the main difference in the 2000 poll being the lower rankings for the 1960s presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and John F. Kennedy, and higher ranking of President Ronald Reagan at #8. Franklin Roosevelt still ranked in the top three.

Another presidential poll was conducted by The Wall Street Journal in 2005, with James Lindgren of Northwestern University Law School for the Federalist Society. 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".

A 2006 Siena College poll of 744 professors reported the following results:

• "George W. Bush has just finished five years as President. If today were the last day of his presidency, how would you rank him? The responses were: Great: 2%; Near Great: 5%; Average: 11%; Below Average: 24%; Failure: 58%."
• "In your judgment, do you think he has a realistic chance of improving his rating?” Two-thirds (67%) responded no; less than a quarter (23%) responded yes; and 10% chose no opinion or not applicable."

Thomas Kelly, professor emeritus of American studies at Siena College, said: "President Bush would seem to have small hope for high marks from the current generation of practicing historians and political scientists. In this case, current public opinion polls actually seem to cut the President more slack than the experts do." Dr. Douglas Lonnstrom, Siena College professor of statistics and director of the Siena Research Institute, stated: "In our 2002 presidential rating, with a group of experts comparable to this current poll, President Bush ranked 23rd of 42 presidents. That was shortly after 9/11. Clearly, the professors do not think things have gone well for him in the past few years. These are the experts that teach college students today and will write the history of this era tomorrow."

The C-SPAN Survey of Presidential Leadership consists of rankings from a group of presidential historians and "professional observers of the presidency" who ranked presidents in a number of categories initially in 2000 and more recently in 2009. With some minor variation, both surveys found that historians consider Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Franklin D. Roosevelt the three best presidents by a wide margin and William Henry Harrison, Andrew Johnson, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan the worst.

Scholar survey results

Green backgrounds indicate top quartile. Red backgrounds indicate bottom quartile. (This is if the number of presidents is divisible by 4. If there are 4n+2 or 4n+3 presidents, then n+1 presidents are marked green but only n are marked red.)

Chronological order	President	Schlesinger 1948 poll rank	Schlesinger 1962 poll rank	1982 Murray-Blessing survey of 846 historians	Chicago Tribune 1982 poll rank	Siena 1982 poll rank	Siena 1990 poll rank	Siena 1994 poll rank	Ridings- McIver 1996 poll rank	CSPAN 1999 poll rank	Wall Street Journal 2000 poll rank	Siena 2002 poll rank	Wall Street Journal 2005 poll rank	CSPAN 2009 poll rank
01	George Washington	02	02	03	03	04	04	04	03	03	01	04	01	02
02	John Adams	09	10	09	14 (tie)	10	14	12	14	16	13	12	13	17
03	Thomas Jefferson	05	05	04	05	02	03	05	04	07	04	05	04	07
04	James Madison	14	12	14	17	09	08	09	10	18	15	09	17	20
05	James Monroe	12	18	15	16	15	11	15	13	14	16	08	16	14
06	John Quincy Adams	11	13	16	19	17	16	17	18	19	20	17	25	19
07	Andrew Jackson	06	06	07	06	13	09	11	08	13	06	13	10	13
08	Martin Van Buren	15	17	20	18	21	21	22	21	30	23	24	27	31
09	William Henry Harrison	–	–	–	38	26	35	28	35	37	–	36	–	39
10	John Tyler	22	25	28	29	34	33	34	34	36	34	37	35	35
11	James K. Polk	10	08	12	11	12	13	14	11	12	10	11	09	12
12	Zachary Taylor	25	24	27	28	29	34	33	29	28	31	34	33	29
13	Millard Fillmore	24	26	29	31	32	32	35	36	35	35	38	36	37
14	Franklin Pierce	27	28	31	35	35	36	37	37	39	37	39	38	40
15	James Buchanan	26	29	33	36	37	38	39	40	41	39	41	40	42
16	Abraham Lincoln	01	01	01	01	03	02	02	01	01	02	02	02	01
17	Andrew Johnson	19	23	32	32	38	39	40	39	40	36	42	37	41
18	Ulysses S. Grant	28	30	35	30	36	37	38	38	33	32	35	29	23
19	Rutherford B. Hayes	13	14	22	22	22	23	24	25	26	22	27	24	33
20	James Garfield	–	–	–	33	25	30	26	30	29	–	33	–	28
21	Chester A. Arthur	17	21	26	24	24	26	27	28	32	26	30	26	32
22, 24	Grover Cleveland	08	11	17	13	18	17	19	16	17	12	20	12	21
23	Benjamin Harrison	21	20	23	25	31	29	30	31	31	27	32	30	30
25	William McKinley	18	15	18	10	19	19	18	17	15	14	19	14	16
26	Theodore Roosevelt	07	07	05	04	05	05	03	05	04	05	03	05	04
27	William Howard Taft	16	16	19	20	20	20	21	20	24	19	21	20	24
28	Woodrow Wilson	04	04	06	07	06	06	06	06	06	11	06	11	09
29	Warren G. Harding	29	31	36	37	39	40	41	41	38	37	40	39	38
30	Calvin Coolidge	23	27	30	27	30	31	36	33	27	25	29	23	26
31	Herbert Hoover	20	19	21	21	27	28	29	24	34	29	31	31	34
32	Franklin D. Roosevelt	03	03	02	02	01	01	01	02	02	03	01	03	03
33	Harry S. Truman	–	09	08	08	07	07	07	07	05	07	07	07	05
34	Dwight D. Eisenhower	–	22	11	09	11	12	08	09	09	09	10	08	08
35	John F. Kennedy	–	–	13	14 (tie)	08	10	10	15	08	18	14	15	06
36	Lyndon B. Johnson	–	–	10	12	14	15	13	12	11	17	15	19	11
37	Richard Nixon	–	–	34	34	28	25	23	32	25	33	26	32	27
38	Gerald R. Ford	–	–	24	23	23	27	32	27	23	28	28	28	22
39	Jimmy Carter	–	–	25	26	33	24	25	19	22	30	25	34	25
40	Ronald Reagan	–	–	–	–	16	22	20	26	10	08	16	06	10
41	George H. W. Bush	–	–	–	–	–	18	31	22	20	21	22	21	18
42	Bill Clinton	–	–	–	–	–	–	16	23	21	24	18	22	15
43	George W. Bush	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	23	18	36
44	Barack Obama	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–	–

More than 1,000 people have participated in the surveys. The issue of the validity of the rankings has been of special interest to historians and political scientists, who have tried to specify the relative importance of personality, leadership, issues and partisanship. Quantitative ranking by groups of scholars has been in favor in recent decades, displacing the traditional methods of evaluation by individual writers as typified by Bailey (1966) and most biographers.

Because Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms as both the 22nd and 24th President, the total number of Presidents in each poll is at least one less than the number of the most recently serving President in the poll. Because of their short time in office, Presidents William Henry Harrison and James Garfield are sometimes omitted from these polls.

Liberal and conservative raters

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). Conservatives placed Democrat Harry S. Truman at a higher ranking.

Rankings by Liberals and Conservatives

Rank	Liberals (n=190)	Conservatives (n=50)
1	Lincoln	Lincoln
2	Franklin Roosevelt	Washington
3	Washington	Franklin Roosevelt
4	Jefferson	Jefferson
5	Theodore Roosevelt	Theodore Roosevelt
6	Wilson	Jackson
7	Jackson	Truman
8	Truman	Wilson
9	Lyndon Johnson	Eisenhower
10	John Adams	John Adams
...
30	Coolidge	Carter
31	Pierce	Nixon
32	Buchanan	Pierce
33	Andrew Johnson	Andrew Johnson
34	Grant	Buchanan
35	Nixon	Grant
36	Harding	Harding

Popular opinion

ABC poll

An ABC News poll about presidential greatness, taken 16–20 February 2000, asked 1012 adults nationwide, "Who do you think was the greatest American president?"

1. Abraham Lincoln (19%)
2. John F. Kennedy (17%)
3. Franklin Roosevelt (11%)
4. No opinion (10%)
5. Ronald Reagan (9%)
6. George Washington (8%)
7. Bill Clinton (7%)
8. Theodore Roosevelt (4%)
9. George H.W. Bush (4%)
10. Thomas Jefferson (3%)
11. Harry Truman (2%)
12. Richard Nixon (2%)
13. Jimmy Carter (1%)
14. Dwight Eisenhower (1%)

Rasmussen Reports poll

A Rasmussen Reports poll taken June 13–24 of 2007 asked 1,000 randomly selected adults to rate America's presidents. Six presidents were rated favorably by at least 80% of respondents. They were George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy. Twenty presidents were viewed favorably by at least 50% of respondents.

Only two presidents were viewed unfavorably by at least 50% of respondents. They were Richard Nixon and George W. Bush.

Favorably-viewed Presidents

1. George Washington (94% favorable)
2. Abraham Lincoln (92% favorable)
3. Thomas Jefferson (89% favorable)
4. Theodore Roosevelt (84% favorable)
5. Franklin D. Roosevelt (81% favorable)
6. John F. Kennedy (80% favorable)
7. John Adams (74% favorable)
8. James Madison (73% favorable)
9. Ronald Reagan (72% favorable)
10. Dwight Eisenhower (72% favorable)
11. Harry Truman (70% favorable)
12. Andrew Jackson (69% favorable)
13. Gerald Ford (62% favorable)
14. John Quincy Adams (59% favorable)
15. Ulysses S. Grant (58% favorable)
16. George H.W. Bush (57% favorable)
17. William Taft (57% favorable)
18. Jimmy Carter (57% favorable)
19. Woodrow Wilson (56% favorable)
20. Bill Clinton (55% favorable)

Unfavorably-viewed Presidents

1. Richard Nixon (60% unfavorable)
2. George W. Bush (59% unfavorable)
3. Lyndon B. Johnson (55% unfavorable)

Washington College poll

A Washington College poll about presidential greatness, taken 11 February 2005, asked 800 adults nationwide, "Thinking about all the presidents of the United States throughout history to the present, who would you say was America's greatest president?"

1. Abraham Lincoln (20%)
2. Ronald Reagan (15%)
3. Franklin D. Roosevelt (12%)
4. John F. Kennedy (11%)
5. Bill Clinton (10%)
6. Other/Don't Know (9%)
7. George W. Bush (8%)
8. George Washington (6%)
9. Theodore Roosevelt (3%)
10. Dwight Eisenhower (3%)
11. Jimmy Carter (2%)
12. Thomas Jefferson (2%)
13. Richard Nixon (1%)
14. John Adams (<1%)
15. Andrew Jackson (<1%)
16. Lyndon Johnson (<1%)

Gallup poll

A Gallup poll about presidential greatness, taken February 9–11, 2007, asked 1006 adults nationwide, "Who do you regard as the greatest United States president?"

1. Abraham Lincoln (18%)
2. Ronald Reagan (16%)
3. John F. Kennedy (14%)
4. Bill Clinton (13%)
5. Franklin Roosevelt (9%)
6. Other/None/No opinion (8%)
7. George Washington (7%)
8. Harry Truman (3%)
9. George W. Bush (2%)
10. Theodore Roosevelt (2%)
11. Dwight Eisenhower (2%)
12. Thomas Jefferson (2%)
13. Jimmy Carter (2%)
14. Gerald Ford (1%)
15. George H.W. Bush (1%)
16. Richard Nixon (0%)

Recent president polls

These polls evaluate Presidents from Dwight D. Eisenhower and later succession.

Quinnipiac University poll

A Quinnipiac University poll, taken May 23–30, 2006, asked 1,534 registered American voters to pick the worst U.S. President of the last 61 years.

"Which of these eleven presidents we have had since World War II would you consider the worst president– Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Senior, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush?"

1. George W. Bush (34%)
2. Richard Nixon (17%)
3. Bill Clinton (16%)
4. Jimmy Carter (13%)
5. Don't Know/No Answer (5%)
6. Lyndon Johnson (4%)
7. George H. W. Bush (3%)
8. Ronald Reagan (3%)
9. Gerald Ford (2%)
10. Harry Truman (1%)
11. John Kennedy (1%)
12. Dwight Eisenhower (<1%)

USA Today/Gallup poll

A USA Today/Gallup Poll, taken December 8–10, 2006, asked 1009 adults nationwide, "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?"

USA Today/Gallup poll 2006

Result	George W. Bush	Bill Clinton	George H.W. Bush	Ronald Reagan	Jimmy Carter	Gerald Ford
1. outstanding	4%	12%	5%	24%	11%	6%
2. above average	15%	33%	27%	40%	27%	17%
3. average	27%	29%	50%	26%	38%	60%
4. below average	25%	15%	10%	6%	13%	9%
5. poor	29%	10%	8%	4%	9%	3%
unsure	-	-	-	1%	3%	5%

See also

• Historical rankings of British Prime Ministers
• Historical ranking of Australian Prime Ministers

Further reading

• Bailey, Thomas A. (1966). Presidential Greatness: The Image and the Man from George Washington to the Present. New York: Appleton-Century. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) → A non quantitative appraisal by leading historian.
• Bose, Meena (2003). The Uses and Abuses of Presidential Ratings. New York: Nova Science Publishers. ISBN 1590337948. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) → A collection of essays by presidential scholars.
• DeGregorio, William A. (1993). The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents (4. ed., rev., expanded, and up-dated ed.). New York: Barricade Books. ISBN 0942637925. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help) → Contains the results of the 1962 and 1982 surveys.
• Faber, Charles (2000). The American Presidents Ranked by Performance. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. ISBN 0786407654. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Felzenberg, Alvin S. (1997). "There You Go Again: Liberal Historians and the New York Times Deny Ronald Reagan His Due". Policy Review. 82: 51–54. ISSN 0146-5945. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)
• Holli, Melvin G. (1999). The American Mayor: The Best & the Worst Big-City Leaders. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State Univ. Press. ISBN 0271018763. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Miller, Nathan (1998). Star-Spangled Men America's Ten Worst Presidents. New York: Scribner. ISBN 0684836106. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Murray, Robert K. (1994). Greatness in the White House: Rating the Presidents, from Washington Through Ronald Reagan (2., updated ed. ed.). University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State Univ. Press. ISBN 0271010894. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Pfiffner, James P. (2003). "Ranking the Presidents: Continuity and Volatility" (PDF). White House Studies. 3: 23. ISSN 1535-4768. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)
• Ridings, William J., Jr. (1997). Rating the Presidents: A Ranking of U.S. leaders, from the Great and Honorable to the Dishonest and Incompetent. Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing. ISBN 0806517999. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. (1997). "Ranking the Presidents: From Washington to Clinton". Political Science Quarterly. 112: 179–190. doi:10.2307/2657937. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Skidmore, Max J. (2004). Presidential Performance: A Comprehensive Review. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co. ISBN 0786418206. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
• Skidmore, Max J. (2001). "Ranking and Evaluating Presidents: The Case of Theodore Roosevelt". White House Studies. 1 (4): 495–505. ISSN 1535-4768. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help)
• Taranto, James (2004). Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and Worst in the White House. New York: Wall Street Journal Books. ISBN 0743254333. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help) → For Federalist Society surveys.
• Vedder, Richard (2001). "Rating Presidential Performance". In Denson, John V. (ed.) (ed.). Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom. Auburn, AL: Mises Institute. ISBN 0945466293. {{cite book}}: |editor= has generic name (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

External links

• "Ranking Presidents: Utter Nonsense Or Useful Analysis?, 2001 column by John Dean
• Top 10 Worst US Presidents - The List Universe
• List of presidential rankings Historians rank the 42 men who have held the office. AP via MSNBC. Feb. 16, 2009 Poll