Americans point to the best president of their lifetimes in new poll

Earlier this year, members of the American Political Science Association’s Presidents and Executive Politics section – 170 scholars, in total – ranked each of the American presidents from best to worst. Barack Obama did quite well, ranking 8th overall, and 1st among presidents over the last half-century.

As it turns out, public attitudes are largely in line with scholars’ attitudes. The Pew Research Center published an interesting report on this yesterday:

When asked which president has done the best job in their lifetimes, more Americans name Barack Obama than any other president. More than four-in-ten (44%) say Obama is the best or second best president of their lifetimes, compared with about a third who mention Bill Clinton (33%) or Ronald Reagan (32%).

When it comes to first-place votes – presidents who were picked as the very president of respondents’ lifetimes – Obama was the clear winner with 31%, followed by Reagan with 21%, and Clinton with 13%.

There was, however, a significant age gap: Obama dominated among younger Americans, while Reagan fared better among older Americans.

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