Which presidents of the 21st century receive the worst scores from historians and why?
Executive summary
Historians consistently identify Donald J. Trump as the lowest‑ranked 21st‑century president in multiple expert surveys, with scholars pointing to deficiencies across standard leadership metrics; George W. Bush is the other 21st‑century occupant who frequently appears on “worst” lists, while Barack Obama and Joe Biden tend to score far higher in the same polls (though rankings shift by methodology and pollster) [1] [2] [3]. These judgments rest not on a single metric but on aggregated scores across ten leadership qualities—public persuasion, crisis leadership, economic management, moral authority, international relations, administrative skills, relations with Congress, vision, equal justice, and performance in context—so the “why” is a composite of failings or strengths within those categories as measured by different historian surveys [4] [5].
1. Donald Trump: the clear outlier at the bottom and why historians place him there
Multiple recent scholarly tallies put Trump at or near the very bottom of historical rankings: the Presidential Greatness Project placed him last with a very low overall score, and other surveys such as C‑SPAN’s earlier cycles and media summaries show him well below most modern presidents [1] [6]. The polling instruments behind those results evaluate ten leadership attributes; Trump’s low placement reflects consistently poor averages across many of those attributes in the eyes of surveyed experts—an assessment reinforced by partisan splits in the data (self‑identified Republican historians rate him higher, but still often in the bottom tier) [5] [1]. Public controversy, norm‑breaking behavior, and crises tied to his tenure are the focal points critics cite when translating those leadership metrics into a negative historical judgment, and survey results reflect that aggregation rather than a single unanimous charge [4] [1].
2. George W. Bush: a frequent target in “worst” lists though not a unanimity of condemnation
George W. Bush regularly appears on compilations of the weaker presidents in contemporary rankings and media roundups, with outlets that average multiple historian polls placing him toward the lower end of modern presidencies [7]. Across scholarly surveys, Bush’s mixed evaluations stem from uneven scores on international relations and long‑term consequences of policy choices—factors that historians fold into the multi‑category frameworks described by C‑SPAN and others—so his placement is driven by specific policy legacies as weighed against other leadership attributes [4] [7]. It is important to note that while Bush is often singled out in popular “worst” lists, academic surveys show wider variation in expert opinion than the treatment in headline lists sometimes conveys [8].
3. Barack Obama and Joe Biden: middling to positive historian evaluations, not “worst” status
Barack Obama and Joe Biden do not typically appear on historian lists of the worst presidents; C‑SPAN’s 2021 data and other summaries placed Obama substantially higher (top‑decile or near it in some metrics) and Biden was ranked in the roughly middle‑high range in a 2024 APSA‑based survey (Obama ~10th in C‑SPAN reporting; Biden 14th in the 2024 survey) [3] [2]. Those rankings indicate that historians credit those presidents with relative strengths across several of the same ten leadership categories, and thus neither figures among the worst in scholarly consensus [4].
4. Methodology matters: why “worst” is not absolute and partisan effects obscure consensus
All of these findings come from structured expert surveys that convert qualitative judgments into numeric scores—C‑SPAN’s ten‑category approach and variants such as the Presidential Greatness Project or Siena College polls—and results shift with sample composition, timing, weighting of categories, and whether partisanship of respondents is factored into analysis [5] [1] [9]. That produces durable patterns—Trump emerging as the most negatively scored 21st‑century president in multiple recent scholarly surveys [1] [2]—but also meaningful variation: some historians and political scientists disagree on the relative weight of crises vs. long‑term policy, and partisan identity among respondents measurably alters rankings [8] [1].
5. Bottom line: which 21st‑century presidents receive the worst historian scores and why
Among presidents who have served in the 21st century, Donald Trump is the clearest consensus “worst” in recent historian surveys because he scores lowest across the multi‑factor leadership frameworks used by experts, while George W. Bush is the other 21st‑century occupant who frequently appears toward the lower end of aggregated lists due to disputed policy legacies; Barack Obama and Joe Biden generally receive substantially better assessments in the same expert polls [1] [7] [3] [2]. Any definitive ranking must be read alongside methodological notes—these are expert judgments aggregated across ten leadership qualities—not an absolute moral verdict, and partisan composition of respondents significantly influences outcomes [4] [5] [8].