Survey provides all-time presidential rankings. Trump supporters won’t like the results
If there is one thing people both love and hate it is polling.
The Fourth Historian of the Survey of Presidential Leadership is a perfect example because this is the first of the series that includes Donald Trump. Just the name Trump spurs reactions ranging from intense hatred to pure worship so imagine what his ranking as the 41st best president (out of 44) will provide.
I know Trump was known as the 45th president but there are only 44 to rate because Grover Cleveland messed everyone up by serving two terms but not in a row. In fact, Cleveland who won, then lost and then won again is said to be an example of what people in Trumpland hope will happen to their hero.
But modern historians didn’t show Trump much love. Trump’s highest ranking was a dismal 32 in the public persuasion category and he finished last in both moral authority and administrative skills.
The survey is sponsored by C-SPAN, the public affairs network. It included 142 historians and presidency experts who ranked each president in 10 categories also including crisis leadership, economic management, relations with congress and performance within context of their times.
Overall, only Franklin Pierce at 42, Andrew Johnson at 43 and James Buchanan at 44 fell below Trump.
Buchanan earned his place by refusing to do anything as president and overseeing the secession of several states from the union without taking any action. He also believed the greatest achievement of his administration was getting a brick stable built at the White House. Buchanan compiled a remarkable record of ineptitude in the survey as he finished last in five of the 10 categories, second to last in four others and third to last in the one other category, administrative skills.
Abraham Lincoln led the survey followed by George Washington, Franklin Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower. Washington may have been first in war and first in peace but was only second in the hearts of some countrymen.
Harry Truman, Thomas Jefferson, John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama rounded out the top 10.
You can find more about the rankings at the C-SPAN website.
The survey assigned equal value to each of the 10 categories so that Barack Obama could finish 10th overall even though his worst category was relations with congress at 32.
Andrew Jackson still finished 22nd overall even with a moral authority rating of 39, most likely because of his sending thousands of Native Americans to their deaths along the Trail of Tears forced relocation march from North Carolina and Georgia to Oklahoma.
Bill Clinton finished at 19 despite a moral rating of 38. Yet, another notorious womanizer, John Kennedy, got a moral rating of 16 helping him to an 8th place finish. But Jimmy Carter, No. 7 in morals, finished 26.
Additional noteworthy data on presidential rankings
Some have made nice advances in the surveys which started in 2000. Others have fallen. Ulysses Grant, 33 in the first poll, has climbed to 20. George W. Bush has climbed from 36 to 29 while his dad, George H.W. Bush, started at 20 and now is 21. Some show a remarkable consistency like Lyndon Johnson whose ratings have been 10, 11, 10 and 11. Or William Howard Taft who spent three surveys at 24 but moved up to 23 this year.
Then there are the amazingly consistent bottom three — Franklin Pierce, Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan, who have held their positions through all four surveys.
As the times change so do some opinions of presidents. James Polk, a workaholic who was an active president, started the surveys at 12 but has fallen to 18 perhaps as a result of scholarship on his land grabbing Mexican War.
It is unclear how everyone rated William Henry Harrison, who somehow finished at 40, just above Trump. Harrison spent 31 days in office before dying. Perhaps he got extra credit for not having time to mess up as much stuff as some presidents.
