A new YouGov survey asked Americans to rate 20 U.S. presidents and 11 first ladies on a scale from outstanding to poor. Half of Americans rate Donald Trump as "poor," the most who do for any of the 20 presidents.
The three presidents rated as outstanding or above average by the highest shares of Americans among the 20 in the poll are Abraham Lincoln (74%), John F. Kennedy (66%), and George Washington (65%).
More recent presidents have many more detractors than do presidents from earlier in U.S. history, who greater shares of Americans are unsure about. 55% rate Donald Trump as poor (48%) or below average (6%), as do 50% about Joe Biden and 48% about Richard Nixon.
Each president's net rating — the share of Americans who view them as outstanding or above average minus the share who view them as below average or poor — can make it easier to compare sentiment about two presidents whom different shares of Americans are unsure about. Of the 20 presidents in the poll, 11 have positive net ratings, including three who were in office in the past 50 years: Ronald Reagan (+22), Jimmy Carter (+6), and Barack Obama (+15). By contrast, six of the 11 presidents with negative net ratings held office in the past 50 years: Lyndon B. Johnson (-1), George H.W. Bush (-12), Bill Clinton (-3), Donald Trump (-20), and Joe Biden (-27).
Democrats and Republicans generally have much more positive views of recent presidents of their own party than of the opposing party. Net ratings among Democrats are much higher than among Republicans for Jimmy Carter (+53 vs. -26), Bill Clinton (+45 vs. -42), Barack Obama (+83 vs. -60), and Joe Biden (+49 vs. -87). And the reverse is true for Richard Nixon (-62 vs. -7), Ronald Reagan (-20 vs. +71), and Donald Trump (-91 vs. +70) by Republicans.
Views are less politically polarized for several other presidents, most of whose terms in office precede the adult lives of most Americans: George Washington, John Adams, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy.
The survey also asked Americans to rate the 11 most recent first ladies. Of these, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Michelle Obama stand out as favorites: The percentages of Americans who rate them as outstanding or above average are 60% and 51%, respectively. The first ladies most likely to be rated as poor or below average are Melania Trump (46%) and Hillary Clinton (44%).
Net ratings of first ladies tell a slightly different story, though Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (+56) remains by far the favorite. The first ladies with the next highest net ratings are Rosalynn Carter (+32), Nancy Reagan (+25), Lady Bird Johnson (+23), Barbara Bush (+21), Michelle Obama (+21), and Laura Bush (+19). Hillary Clinton (-17), Melania Trump (-16), and Jill Biden (-9) receive net negative ratings.
On average, the 11 most recent first ladies receive higher net ratings than their husbands. The largest gaps are between Laura and George W. Bush (+19 vs. -22), Pat and Richard Nixon (+5 vs. -35), Barbara and George H. W. Bush (+21 vs. -12), Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter (+32 vs. +6), and Lady Bird and Lyndon B. Johnson (+23 vs. -1). Hillary Clinton is the only first lady with a significantly lower net rating than her husband (-17 vs. -3 for Bill Clinton).
Couples that receive similar net ratings to one another are Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and John F. Kennedy (+56 vs. +61), Nancy and Ronald Reagan (+25 vs. +22), Michelle and Barack Obama (+21 vs. +15), and Melania and Donald Trump (-16 vs. -20).
Opinion of first ladies generally is politically polarized in a similar way to opinion of their husbands.
— Carl Bialik contributed to this article
See the results for this YouGov poll
Methodology: The poll was conducted online among 2,255 adult citizens on two separate 2026 surveys from February 2 - 5 and February 3 - 5. A random sample (stratified by gender, age, race, education, geographic region, and voter registration) was selected from the 2019 American Community Survey. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2024 presidential vote, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. 2024 presidential vote, at time of weighting, was estimated to be 48% Harris and 50% Trump. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given around November 8, 2024, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (31% Democratic, 33% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 3 percentage points.
Image: Getty
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