Based on broad metrics, is trump considered a good president

1. Approval ratings: consistently low by modern standards

Across multiple polling trackers and Gallup’s historical series, Trump’s job-approval figures have been unusually low for a modern president, with periods in both terms where approval scarcely exceeded the mid-30s and he began terms with some of the lowest inaugural approval numbers since the 1950s ^{[1] [6] [2] [7]}. State-level and aggregate trackers continued to show persistent sub-50 percent approval in recent snapshots, with some battleground states markedly negative — a pattern that, historically, correlates with political headwinds for an incumbent’s party ^{[8] [9]}.

2. Expert and historical rankings: near the bottom in formal surveys

In scholarly ranking projects and expert surveys that score presidents across leadership, crisis management, economic stewardship and moral authority, Trump’s entry has landed him among the lowest-rated presidents; the 2024 edition of one major compilation scored him 10.92 out of 100 and placed him at the bottom, with even self-identified Republican historians rating him in the lower tier ^[3]. C-SPAN–style academic surveys and similar instruments use multi-dimensional scales to produce those comparative judgments, making the low placement a reflection of aggregated expert assessments on diverse leadership criteria ^[10].

3. Policy results and numeric indicators: mixed signals depending on metric

Quantitative trackers that focus on single domains produce mixed appraisals: some economic indicators historically associated with political success were viewed favorably by portions of the public at times in his first term, while other data sets and political-environment indices used to forecast electoral outcomes have shown vulnerability or decline ^{[6] [9]}. Polling averages and data aggregators such as Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin and New York Times polling compendia provide rolling measures of public sentiment that reflect these ups and downs rather than unambiguous policy-driven acclaim ^{[4] [7]}.

4. Partisan polarization shapes “good” vs. “bad” judgments

Partisanship skews every metric: Gallup and other trackers record record-sized partisan gaps in satisfaction with the country’s direction and in presidential approval, with near-uniform Republican approval and near-uniform Democratic disapproval at several points — a distribution that complicates claims of broad-based “goodness” or “badness” ^[6]. In practice, a president can score highly within his base while failing to generate majority-level approval, and Trump exemplifies that dynamic ^[8].

5. Methodological caveats: what metrics miss and what they capture

Scholars and commentators caution that historical rankings and real-time KPIs are imperfect: rankings can be “parlour games,” and corporate-style performance appraisals may miss the political and cultural dimensions of a presidency that certain supporters value, such as disruption of norms or alignment with a policy agenda ^[5]. Polls measure contemporary sentiment and are sensitive to short-term events; expert surveys aggregate judgments across categories that reflect historians’ priorities rather than immediate political success ^{[4] [10]}.

6. Conclusion — answering the question directly

Based on broad, conventional metrics — aggregated public approval, expert historical rankings, and political-environment indices — the consensus is that Trump is not considered a “good” president in the sense of broad popular approval or high scholarly ranking: approval has been persistently below a majority and formal expert surveys rank him near the bottom of U.S. presidents ^{[1] [2] [3]}. That conclusion coexists with the clear alternative viewpoint that within his base he is assessed positively and that certain policy outcomes and indicators produced favorable pocket metrics — a reminder that “good president” is both a quantitative judgment and a normative one shaped by partisan and methodological lenses ^{[6] [9] [5]}.