The best (and worst) presidents ever
Ranking our 45 presidents
Happy Presidents Day! And what better way to celebrate than to rank the best — and the worst — of them!
There are, obviously, a whole bunch of different ways to do that. I’m partial to a survey run by Siena College that taps the opinions of 140 presidential scholars to figure out the top (and the bottom) of the charts.
They rate the presidents across 20 categories including “luck,” “background,” “imagination,” “integrity” and so on. And they’ve been doing it since 1982, with the most recent version coming out in 2022.
Here’s a look at their top 10 presidents over that time:
As you can see, the members of the top 5 hasn’t changed — although the order they have been ranked over the years has. FDR is widely regarded as the best president ever, with Abraham Lincoln coming in 2nd more than anyone else. Teddy Roosevelt, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson round out the top 5.
There’s consistency at the bottom of the rankings too. Here’s that:
With the exception of the addition of Donald Trump in the 2018 and 2022 surveys, there’s a lot of similarities over the years.
Warren Harding and Andrew Johnson are consistently rated as our two worst presidents. James Buchanan is up there too.
One note: There’s clearly been a reexamination of Ulysses Grant’s presidency over the past few decades. He was consistently in the bottom 5 in the first three Siena surveys but has moved up to the 21st spot in the 2022 rankings. (If you haven’t Ron Chernow’s Grant biography, you need to. Immediately.)
Aside from Trump, how do our modern presidents rate on the Siena survey?
Barack Obama is the highest — at #11. Bill Clinton is #14. Ronald Reagan is #18. Joe Biden is #19. George H.W. Bush is #20. George W. Bush is #35. (Full rankings are available here.)
There are, obviously, other ways to measure the best and worst presidents — most notably via public opinion polls. And the differences between what the public thinks and what presidential experts believe is worth exploring.
In 2021, YouGov did a poll of presidential favorability — ranking all 45 men who have held the office by how well liked they were by the public. (Worth noting: Being viewed favorably by the public is NOT the same thing as being regarded as the best or most effective president.)
In that poll, Lincoln was the most popular president, with 8 in 10 Americans carrying a favorable opinion of him including more than half (56%) who said they viewed the Great Emancipator “very” favorably.
The rest of the top 5 (in order) were: John F. Kennedy, Washington, Teddy Roosevelt and Jefferson.
Two interesting things there:
JFK is viewed far more favorably by the general public than by presidential historians. According to the Siena poll, Kennedy ranks as the 9th best president — sandwiched between LBJ (8th) and James Madison (10th). The appeal of Camelot — and the image Kennedy (and his family) was selling remains more powerful than the reality of what he actually did in office.
FDR is better regarded by scholars (1st) than the public (7th). In the YouGov survey, FDR ranks just behind Dwight Eisenhower and just ahead of Obama.
Among modern presidents, Obama was, again, the best regarded (54% favorable). Reagan, too, had a 54% favorable rating. Biden was at 47%. Trump was at 39% approval, which put him ahead of the likes LBJ and Madison, who received far higher ratings from presidential scholars.
There’s a subjectivity built it all of these ratings and rankings, of course. But, taken as a whole, they suggest that the last 40 or so years have produced — in the mean — slightly above average presidents. Obama is widely regarded as the best president of recent vintage and Trump the worst.
Biden, at least at this stage, is in the great middle of presidents — although, it’s worth noting, judging a president’s historical impact while he is in office is virtually impossible.
One more thing on this President’s Day: In 2017, I helped put together a list of the best biographies of every president. (This was before Biden was in office; I would recommend Evan Osnos’ biography of the 46th president.)
The full list is below.
* George Washington: Washington: A Life, by Ron Chernow; His Excellency: George Washington, by Joseph J. Ellis.
* John Adams: John Adams, by David McCullough; Passionate Sage: The Character and Legacy of John Adams, by Joseph J. Ellis.
* Thomas Jefferson: Jefferson and His Time, by Dumas Malone; American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, by Joseph J. Ellis; Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, by Jon Meacham.
* James Madison: James Madison: A Biography, by Ralph Ketchem.
* James Monroe: The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness, by Harlow Giles Unger.
* John Quincy Adams: John Quincy Adams (The American Presidents Series), by Robert V. Remini.
* Andrew Jackson: American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House, by Jon Meacham; The Life of Andrew Jackson, by Robert V. Remini.
* Martin Van Buren: Martin Van Buren (The American Presidents Series), by Ted Widmer; Martin Van Buren : The Romantic Age of American Politics, by John Niven.
* William Henry Harrison: William Henry Harrison (The American Presidents Series) by Gail Collins; Old Tippecanoe: William Henry Harrison and His Times, by Freeman Cleaves.
* John Tyler: John Tyler (The American Presidents Series), by Gary May; John Tyler: Champion of the Old South, by Oliver P. Chitwood.
* James K. Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America, by Walter R. Borneman.
* Zachary Taylor: Zachary Taylor: Soldier, Planter, Statesman of the Old Southwest, by K. Jack Bauer.
* Millard Fillmore: Millard Fillmore: Biography of a President, by Robert J. Rayback
* Franklin Pierce: Franklin Pierce (The American Presidents Series), by Michael Holt.
* James Buchanan: President James Buchanan: A Biography, by Philip S. Klein.
* Abraham Lincoln: Lincoln, by David Herbert Donald; Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, by Doris Kearns Goodwin; With Malice Toward None: A Life of Abraham Lincoln, by Stephen B. Oates; Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years and The War Years, by Carl Sandburg; Abraham Lincoln, by Lord Charnwood.
* Andrew Johnson: Andrew Johnson (The American Presidents Series), by Annette Gordon-Reed.
* Ulysses S. Grant: Grant, by Jean Edward Smith; Grant: A Biography, by William S. McFeeley.
* Rutherford B. Hayes: Rutherford B. Hayes, by Hans Trefousse (The American Presidents Series); Rutherford B. Hayes, and his America, by Harry Barnard.
* James Garfield: Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, by Candice Millard.
*Chester Arthur: Chester Alan Arthur (The American Presidents Series), by Zachary Karabell; Gentleman Boss: The Life of Chester Alan Arthur, by Thomas C. Reeves.
* Grover Cleveland (the 22nd and 24th president): Grover Cleveland: A Study in Character, by Alyn Brodsky; Grover Cleveland (The American Presidents Series), by Henry F. Graff.
* Benjamin Harrison: Benjamin Harrison (The American Presidents Series), by Charles W. Calhoun; Benjamin Harrison: Hoosier statesman, by Harry Joseph Sievers.
* William McKinley: Presidency of William McKinley, by Lewis. L. Gould.
* Theodore Roosevelt: Edmund Morris's Theodore Roosevelt Trilogy; Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt, by David McCullough.
* William Howard Taft: The Life & Times of William Howard Taft, by Harry F. Pringle.
* Woodrow Wilson: Woodrow Wilson: A Biography, by John Milton Cooper Jr.
* Warren G. Harding: The Shadow of Blooming Grove: Warren G. Harding in His Times, by Francis Russell; Warren G. Harding (The American Presidents Series), by John W. Dean.
* Calvin Coolidge: Coolidge, An American Enigma, by Robert Sobel.
* Herbert Hoover: Herbert Hoover (The American Presidents Series), by William E. Leuchtenburg.
*Franklin Roosevelt: Franklin D. Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom, by Conrad Black; No Ordinary Time, by Doris Kearns Goodwin.
*Harry S. Truman: Truman, by David McCullough; Harry S. Truman (The American Presidents Series), by Robert Dallek.
*Dwight D. Eisenhower: Eisenhower: Soldier and President, by Stephen E. Ambrose; Eisenhower in War and Peace, by Jean Edward Smith.
*John F. Kennedy: A Thousand Days, by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.; An Unfinished Life, by Robert Dallek.
*Lyndon B. Johnson: Robert Caro's multi-volume set; Robert Dallek's two-volume set.
*Richard Nixon: The three-volume set by Steven Ambrose; Nixonland, by Richard Perlstein.
*Gerald Ford: Gerald R. Ford (The American Presidents Series) by Douglas Brinkley.
*Jimmy Carter: Jimmy Carter, by Julian E. Zelizer (The American Presidents Series).
*Ronald Reagan: President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime, by Lou Cannon; My Father at 100, by Ron Reagan, Jr.
*George H.W. Bush: George H.W. Bush (The American Presidents Series), by Timothy Naftali; Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush by Jon Meacham
*Bill Clinton: First in His Class, by David Maraniss; The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House, by John F. Harris.
*George W. Bush: Days of Fire by Peter Baker; Bush by Jean Edward Smith=
*Barack Obama: Barack Obama: The Story, by David Maraniss; The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama, by David Remnick.
* Donald Trump: Trump Revealed by Michael Kranish and Marc Fisher
I'd rank Clinton higher, quite frankly, and I'd rank Trump dead last. The man tried to foment an insurrection in order to overturn an election! It doesn't get worse than that!
Great way to celebrate Pres. Day.
I, however think both W. Bush and Trump will settle furhter down on these lists over time.
Good job.
Thnx