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Presidential rankings tend to be subjective and divisive, but they also provide valuable insight into how historical views of presidents evolve over time.

In a recent survey , nearly 200 political science scholars ranked US presidents on a scale of 0-100, from failure (zero) to average (50) to great (100). The totals were then averaged for each president and ranked from highest to lowest.

A majority of the 170 respondents — roughly 57% — identified as Democrats. Just 13% were Republicans, while 27% said they were independents, and 3% selected other. The skewed sampling plus the fact that President Donald Trump is in the middle of his second year in office make it difficult to accurately compare him to previous presidents.

But even among Republicans, Trump was ranked quite unfavorably. Respondents who identified as Republicans or conservatives ranked Trump 40th out of 44 presidents. Self-described Democrats and liberals both ranked him last.

Here are the greatest US presidents, ranked according to current and recent members of the American Political Science Association :

1/

44: Donald Trump

2/

43: James Buchanan

3/

42: William Harrison

4/

41: Franklin Pierce

5/

40: Andrew Johnson

6/

39: Warren Harding

7/

38: Millard Fillmore

8/

37: John Tyler

9/

36: Herbert Hoover

10/

35: Zachary Taylor

11/

34: James Garfield

12/

33: Richard Nixon

13/

32: Benjamin Harrison

14/

31: Chester Arthur

15/

30: George W. Bush

16/

29: Rutherford B. Hayes

17/

28: Calvin Coolidge

18/

27: Martin Van Buren

19/

26: Jimmy Carter

20/

25: Gerald Ford

21/

24: Grover Cleveland

22/

23: John Quincy Adams

23/

22: William Howard Taft

24/

21: Ulysses S. Grant

25/

20: James Polk

26/

19: William McKinley

27/

18: James Monroe

28/

17: George H.W. Bush

29/

16: John F. Kennedy

30/

15: Andrew Jackson

31/

14: John Adams

32/

13: Bill Clinton

33/

12: James Madison

34/

11: Woodrow Wilson

35/

10: Lyndon B. Johnson

36/

9: Ronald Reagan

37/

8: Barack Obama

38/

7: Dwight Eisenhower

39/

6: Harry Truman

40/

5: Thomas Jefferson

41/

4: Teddy Roosevelt

42/

3: Franklin Delano Roosevelt

43/

2: George Washington

44/

1: Abraham Lincoln

......according to current and recent members of the American Political Science Association:

And of course it agrees with John's opinion, too bad it doesn't speak for all Americans who understand politics like your alluding to....

I notice there is no mention of how many people were polled and how many of said political scientists were progressive liberal Democrats?

A majority of the 170 respondents — roughly 57% — identified as Democrats. Just 13% were Republicans, while 27% said they were independents, and 3% selected other.

Didn't read too far did you?

A majority of the 170 respondents — roughly 57% — identified as Democrats.

And therein lies the bias.

Another fake poll to get the loony libs, well, more loony

Okay, you got me there...

In a recent survey , nearly 200 political science scholars ranked US presidents on a scale of 0-100,

You are aware that your link points to Boise State University's front page and not the survey itself? In fact searching the BSU website I can find no reference to the survey at all....

Can't find it at APSA's site either.....

But I will say this, their goals seem like a repetition of A liberals dreams for a PAC...... 

More political action organization that a course of study.....

It appears to be actually from a NY Times op-ed ....

But those that identified as Republicans still put Trump in the bottom five.

nytimes

This list looks like the names were picked out of a hat.

This list looks like the names were picked out of a hat.

And Trump just had the bad luck to have his name picked last out of 44 slips of paper in the hat. Ok.

Haven't you seen these things enough to know how silly they are? The voters obviously don't really have a grasp on most Presidents, they just put the progressive favorites at the top, and the Republican who they hate at the moment at the bottom.  It's the same thing year after year, decade after decade.  10 year ago, G.W. Bush would have been the worst. Now, maybe because Michelle Obama likes him, he's suddenly 30th.  40 year ago, Nixon would have been the worst. Somehow's he now 33rd.   10 years after Trump is out of office, when democrats have found a new President to Hitlerize, Trump will be in the 30s and Bush will probably be in the mid-20s.

It's just a poll of progressives feelings at the current moment. Nothing more to it. C'mon, the idea that Obama was the eighth President of all time would be funny if it wasn't so predictably pathetic. It doesn't even pass the laugh test. 

Sean, it is going to get way worse for Trump. This is just the beginning of an endless parade of lists where he will be at the bottom of the barrel of presidents.

It is fascinating to watch the denial leak out of the conservatives.

Sean, it is going to get way worse for Trump. This is just the beginning of an endless parade of lists where he will be at the bottom of the barrel of presidents.
It is fascinating to watch the denial leak out of the conservatives.

Funny, but it sure seems to bother you LOADS more that Trump is your President than it does us over what some say about him.

In related news most of these scholars are riding the socialist gravy train at public universities and have no problem with the swamp the way it is.

FDR should be near the bottom. 

i agree Trumps' ranking is wrong

.

44th...?

id rank him as 847th, as in ranking in Generals,

he's a 5 Star Spangled Spigot Spewing Superlative laxative

Superlaxtivities , asz his suppositories, n lying un supported stories,

r all so full of $hit, it's amazing peep holes can't see, and no, i didn't spell supporters wrong, as i didn't see any

n

besides, he knows more than the 6 stars, in Generals

n he's got the graded papers

to prove it

Now the crying and the gnashing of teeth begins.  

I wish they had printed the actual vote count. I bet you Trump was so far on the bottom he thought he had been pounded through the earth and ended up in China.

The APSA has taken a hard left the conservatives are leaving. 

redalertpolitics

The traitors FDR and Obama should be ranked at the bottom with Wilson, Nixon, and Carter just above them.  All Marxist Presidents should be branded traitors to our Republic

all those I listed implemented sections of the Communist Manifesto 

i put Trump in the top 10

Reality has sent out an APB looking for you.

Whenever such lists are compiled, I am often amused. Just like in ranking states for certain things, someone has to be first and someone has to be last.

No big deal, and I dare say had polls been conducted during every President's first two years, many rankings would change.

The fact remains Trump won the election and is our President, no matter how much some people don't like it.

Your remedy is to elect someone else next election or get Democrats to impeach Trump.

Whining about it accomplishes nothing worthwhile.

I would say being the worst president is better than losing twice running for the presidency.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Going from memory, I believe the only multiple loser for the Presidency is Henry Clay.

He didn't lose twice though, he lost three Presidential campaigns representing three different parties.

Everyone else who ran twice, won on the second try.

William Jennings Bryan lost three time as Democratic Party Nominee...

He was my great grandmother's uncle. That Monkey Trial killed him along with his image as a populist man of the people. Though he won that trial he lost in the court of public opinion. In the end, he ate himself to death by appoplexy. 

Everyone else who ran twice, won on the second try.

Adlai Stevenson lost twice as well. 

members of the American Political Science Association

Yeah, we should maybe consider who those members are . They're all academics, which maybe shouldn't surprise us, but as has been well documented, the academy in this country leans strongly to the Left. However, this organization in particular has a deep and longstanding problem with liberal bias. They're even driving conservatives out of their own organization by, for example, denying them the right to even discuss, publicly, radical right-wing notions like "viewpoint diversity."

Why I’m Leaving the Political Science Association

I searched for panels on the holy trinity of identity politics: sexism/feminism, racism/white privilege, and sexual orientation/homo/transphobia. My best guess is that conference attendees will have a choice of 104 panels on these topics , in addition to the 4 in the teaching and learning sections. Just for laughs, I searched for panels on political, ideological, or viewpoint diversity. None.

The liberal bias in the APSA appears to be increasing and this has not been lost on observers of this group . For example, with respect to this particular survey compared to years' past:

One surprise this year is that Barack Obama has jumped up to 8th place, from 18th four years ago.

So like . . . what happened? What happened in four years that makes Obama jump ten spots? Were ten other presidents cosmically erased from the timeline?

A closer look at survey respondents:

32.5% (54/166) consider themselves ideologically liberal, while 25.9% (43/166) consider themselves somewhat liberal, and 24.1% consider themselves moderate (40/166). Only 5.4% (9/166) consider themselves ideologically conservative, while 12% (20/166) say they are somewhat conservative. In the general population, self-identified conservatives consistently outnumber liberals by one and a half to two to one. Here, liberals outnumber conservatives by well over three to one, even assuming that the “moderates” are really moderate.

And this is not new for them, either.

The American Political Science Association’s leftward tilt is of long standing. . .   a poll of APSA members conducted in 1984. It found that over 90% intended to vote for Walter Mondale. Just 2% opted for Ronald Reagan, while most of the rest–a larger number than the Reagan supporters–intended to vote for someone on Mondale’s left. Reagan went on to carry 49 states in one of the biggest blowouts in American political history.

But sure, go ahead and take this survey seriously.

Frankly, if these people are willing to put Ronald Reagan at 9, he's probably really Number 3.