Historians agree: Abraham Lincoln was the best US president.
For C-SPAN's most recent Presidential Historians Survey, conducted in 2017, nearly 100 historians and biographers rated 43 US presidents. The survey is released after a sitting president's term, so C-SPAN will likely include current President Donald Trump in its next round of the ranking, after he leaves office.
Although the usual election fervor has been overshadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic, President Trump has still been campaigning and holding reelection rallies around the country. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, he spoke to an arena of about 6,200 attendees on June 22, 2020, followed by another rally with 3,000 people on June 23 in Phoenix, Arizona.
A June 30 national poll from the Pew Research Center shows that the incumbent president is currently trailing behind his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, with only months to go before the November election. According to the poll, 54% of registered voters say they'd support Biden or "lean toward voting for him" if the election were held right now — 44% of those surveyed say the same for President Trump.
In terms of personal qualities, the voters surveyed consider President Trump to be more courageous and energetic than Biden, while Biden pulls ahead of the president in being honest, even-tempered, and a good role model.
The 2017 C-SPAN survey measured 10 qualities of presidential leadership: public persuasion, crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, international relations, administrative skills, relations with Congress, vision, pursued equal justice for all, and performance within the context of his times.
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Scores in each category were then averaged, and the 10 categories were given equal weighting in determining the presidents' total scores.
George Washington came in at No. 2, followed by Franklin D. Roosevelt at No. 3. George H. W. Bush ranked at No. 20, beating out his son George W. Bush who came in at No. 33. Other notable commanders in chief included John F. Kennedy at No. 8, Ronald Reagan at No. 9, and Barack Obama at No. 12.
While some historians weren't shocked that Obama didn't rank higher overall on the list — "That Obama came in at No. 12 his first time out is quite impressive," Douglas Brinkley of Rice University said — others were surprised by his lower-than-expected leadership rankings, including No. 7 in moral authority and No. 8 in economic management.
"But, of course, historians prefer to view the past from a distance, and only time will reveal his legacy," said Edna Greene Medford of Howard University.
Here are the top 25 presidents, according to historians surveyed by C-SPAN.
Rachel Gillett contributed to a previous version of this story.
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