Which U.S. presidents have had the highest average annual Gallup approval ratings since 1945?
Executive summary
Gallup maintains a presidential approval dataset that lets researchers compute average annual approval for presidents from Truman through Biden; Gallup’s interactive center covers Truman–Biden and Gallup reports list term averages such as Joe Biden’s 42.2% and Jimmy Carter’s 45.5% [1] [2] [3]. Available sources do not provide a single ranked list of “highest average annual Gallup approval since 1945” in one place, but they point to the data tools (Gallup’s Job Approval Center) and several headline averages that let one reconstruct such rankings [1] [2].
1. The authoritative source you should use: Gallup’s Presidential Job Approval Center
Gallup’s Presidential Job Approval Center is the primary, original repository of the Gallup approval-series from Harry Truman through Joe Biden and is the source Gallup directs researchers to for weekly, monthly and yearly presidential approval numbers; it is the dataset you need to compute average annual approval ratings for each president since 1945 [1]. Gallup also points readers to Gallup Analytics for exporting and analyzing the series if you need precise year-by-year computation [1].
2. What Gallup already reports in headlines: single-term averages and examples
Gallup and its topic pages publish headline averages for individual presidents — for example, Gallup’s topic summary reports Joe Biden’s term average as 42.2% and notes Jimmy Carter averaged 45.5%, “essentially tied with Harry Truman as the second-lowest among post-World War II presidents” [2] [3]. These published averages are useful signposts but are not a complete ranked list covering every president since 1945 [3] [2].
3. Why you won’t find a ready-made ranked list in the provided sources
Among the supplied material, none presents a single, fully ranked table of “highest average annual Gallup approval ratings since 1945.” Gallup’s interactive center contains the raw series for each president and Gallup’s write-ups mention select averages and high/low examples, but a comprehensive ranking requires extracting the yearly or overall means from the interactive tool or Gallup Analytics [1] [2]. Therefore, available sources do not contain the answer in finished form.
4. How to compute the ranking yourself from Gallup data (what to do next)
Use Gallup’s Presidential Job Approval Center to export yearly or daily approval numbers for each president, then compute the average of yearly means (or the mean of all Gallup measures over the term) to produce a comparable “average annual” figure across presidencies. Gallup explicitly offers export and analytic access through its interactive center and Gallup Analytics subscription for that purpose [1].
5. Known high points and widely cited records you can check quickly
Gallup’s historical coverage and secondary sources highlight notable peaks and troughs — for instance, George W. Bush reached record highs in immediate crisis periods, and presidents vary widely year-to-year — but the supplied search results only cite examples (e.g., Bush’s 90% post‑9/11 in other pieces) indirectly and do not present a full ranked mean list for 1945–present in these results [4] [1]. Use the interactive Gallup dataset to validate any headline examples you plan to quote.
6. Competing perspectives and limitations to note
Different analysts choose different measures: some compare simple term averages, others compare averages of annual means, and others weight by weeks or polls. Gallup’s interactive exports let you pick the method; the sources here do not specify a single canonical averaging method for “average annual approval” [1]. Also, Gallup’s published headlines sometimes emphasize politically salient comparisons (low-term averages, high single-day peaks) rather than methodological transparency about averaging choices [3] [2].
7. Quick recommendation and next steps
If you want a definitive ranked list, I recommend exporting yearly or daily approval values from Gallup’s Presidential Job Approval Center, then computing either (a) the unweighted mean of yearly averages for each president, or (b) the arithmetic mean of all Gallup poll points across each president’s term — and document which method you used. The Gallup center is the data source Gallup itself recommends for this work [1].
Limitations: the provided sources include Gallup headlines and the interactive data hub but do not include a precomputed ranked list of presidents by average annual Gallup approval since 1945; they also do not state a single standardized averaging method for such a ranking [1] [2].