Source: Brooks Kraft / Getty
Every 4 years the Presidents and Executive Politics Presidential Greatness Survey is conducted by current and former members of the American Political Science Association’s presidents and executive politics section. Of the 170 usable surveys (wonder what happen on the unusable surveys) President Abraham Lincoln was ranked #1.
Of the people who took the survey about 57% Democrats, 13% were Republicans, 27% were independents and 3% selected “Other”. The survey asked the presidential experts to use a 0-100 scale “for overall greatness,” with zero being failure, 50 being average and 100 being great. The top 7 didn’t change since the last survey was taken in 2014. They are Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, Harry S. Truman and Dwight Eisenhower.
President Bill Clinton fell from 8th in 2014 to 13th. Several other presidents got an bump. President Barack Obama moved up from 18th to 8th, President George W. Bush moved up five spots, from 35th to 30th and President Reagan also moved into the top 10, ranking ninth.
