Worst Presidents: A Survey of Major Polls
Ten points awarded to the lowest president on any list; nine to the second-lowest and so on
| President | C-SPAN, 1999 | Wall Street Journal, 2005 | Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., 1996 | Siena Poll, 2002 | Ridings-McIver Poll, 1996 | Total Points | Place |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| James Buchanan | 10 | 10 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 47 | 1 |
| Warren G. Harding | 7 | 9 | 10 | 8 | 10 | 44 | 2 |
| Andrew Johnson | 9 | 7 | 8 | 10 | 8 | 42 | 3 |
| Franklin Pierce | 8 | 8 | 4 | 7 | 6 | 31 | 4 |
| Millard Fillmore | 4 | 6 | 2 | 6 | 5 | 23 | 5 |
| John Tyler | 5 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 21 | 6 |
| Ulysses S. Grant | 2 | 0 | 5 | 3 | 7 | 17 | 7 |
| William Harrison | 6 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 14 | 8 |
| Herbert Hoover | 3 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 10 | T-9 |
| Richard Nixon | 0 | 2 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 10 | T-9 |
| Zachary Taylor | 0 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 10 |
| Jimmy Carter | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 11 |
| Calvin Coolidge | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 3 | 12 |
| James Garfield | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | T-13 |
| Chester Arthur | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | T-13 |
Reader Comments
Please Grow Up
Obama has't been President for 250 days. He didn't get us into debt, war and all the other nonsense that we've spent the last 8 years in. Bush gets full credit for that.
All you people who expected him to solve everything before Easter, be realistic. It took 8 years to get into this mess, it's going to take more than 20 days to get out of it. And if you still have a problem in 2012, you can always run for President yourselves. Lets see how you do, with people judging your every move and desision.
Side Note -
Bush should really be on this list. Starting a war that STILL is not over yet, causing this financial crisis, screwing up healthcare and so many much more.
What about Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Obama
Woodrow Wilson has to be in the top three worst presidents of all time, slimly beating Obama and FDR. Let us start by admitting Wilson is the father of Liberalism. Enough said there right! Look at FDR and the massive expansion of government and brainwashing of the nation. Speaking as a historian, this guy was a joke. And just look at the first bit of Obama's tenure. 9 trillion in debt, horrific foreign and domestic policy, shreading of the Constitution (which he calls "an obsticle"), Messiah complex, awful understanding of what America is. Please, let me stop now because I can go for hours on this loser.
To the Carter bashers...
...and to everyone else who passionately feels that a recent president must be on this list:
It's really easy to hate a president whose administration was in your own lifetime. You have firsthand memory of both that president's screwups. If you could remember some of the disasterious presidents we had during the 19th century, you would see why our recent presidential failures look good by comparison.
In his last days in office, Buchanan let the southerners loot the army's weapons for use against us during the civil war.
Andrew Johnson's inconsistent (and insane) reconstruction policies are a big part of the reason that we still feel the scars of the civil war 150 years later.
Ulyses Grant was oblivious while his old army buddies looted the treasury on his watch.
Carter and Nixon may have been bad but they weren't this bad.
advertisement
