1. Lyndon Johnson
LBJ tends to get some respect in public opinion polls, but we’re higher on him than most. It’s tough to follow FDR on just about anything, but LBJ’s numbers speak volumes: he won over the American people early, boasting high approval ratings and the largest average margin of victory. He reduced unemployment by over two full percentage points, kept the national debt under control, and helped the country move on from a global conflict. Polls conducted shows that he’s the best president of the modern era.
2 Franklin D. Roosevelt
Considered by many to be a top five all-time president, FDR earns our 2nd spot, with historically large improvements in unemployment following the Great Depression, and consistently high approval ratings over four terms. That said, FDR suffers just a bit in our rankings due to a gigantic increase in federal debt. Here, our methodology’s lack of foreign policy indicators rears its head, as FDR naturally pushed the country into debt in order to finance World War II.
3 Dwight D. Eisenhower
Eisenhower boasted solid economic numbers throughout his presidency, but his most impressive feat may have been maintaining such a high approval rating over eight full years. Throughout 96 months, he only dipped below 50% once.
4 Ronald Reagan
The Gipper has strong marks almost across the board, from approval rating to the deficit to unemployment. Incidentally, his only spot of weakness (at least in this methodology) is the federal debt, where he ranks among the bottom three for modern presidents (only better than Obama and FDR)
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5 John F. Kennedy
Another opinion poll favorite, JFK suffers slightly from Gerald Ford syndrome he just wasn’t in office long enough to achieve his full potential. Even so, JFK sports the highest average approval rating of any modern president.
6 Harry S. Truman
Truman leads the pack across three categories: seats won, deficit and debt…a capable leader transitioning from war to peacetime. Still, his approval ratings don’t come close to several of the more popular presidents from the 20th century.
7 Bill Clinton
Clinton tends to receive high marks in today’s public opinion polls, but the raw numbers don’t speak quite as highly of the Commander in Chief. Yes, his economic numbers ranged from decent to good, but his party consistently lost seats throughout his presidency. To Clinton’s credit, he was able to work with a Republican-controlled Congress, but the fact that he lost so many seats at all speaks to an underlying flaw in the president.
8 Richard Nixon
Strictly by the numbers, President Nixon had an average presidency, with some small reductions in the federal debt and a minor uptick in unemployment. Naturally, the Watergate Scandal went on to tarnish his reputation and leave a black mark on the administration, but for this particular ranking, he remains in the middle of the pack.
9 George H.W. Bush
In the afterglow of the Reagan administration, President Bush rode a high approval rating through the first three years of his presidency. Unfortunately, his decision to raise taxes an action that broke his famous “no new taxes” pledge tanked his ratings and promptly lost him the 1992 election.
10. Barack Obama
While Obama has a bit more time to shape his legacy, we ran his numbers to the present day to see where he would rank. The current Commander in Chief has overseen a significant drop in unemployment and done well with the deficit, but his approval ratings remain stubbornly low and the federal debt has increased significantly.
