20th century A 1948 poll was conducted by historian
Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. of
Harvard University. 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. 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.
2000–2017 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". 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. 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.
Since 2018 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." Trump—entering the SCRI survey for the first time—joined 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. == Scholar survey summary ==