Historians' ranking of U.S. presidents 2021
American Civil War.
In the 2021 C-SPAN Survey of Presidential Leadership, Abraham Lincoln was chosen as the country's top ranked president for the fourth time in a row. This is the fourth survey of its kind; the first was conducted in 2000, during Bill Clinton's final year in office, while the subsequent three surveys were held in the years after each respective president left office. Compared to the previous survey, the top nine presidents have remained in the same positions, while Barack Obama moved up from 12th place in 2017 to round out the top 10 in 2021. The bottom three presidents also remained unchanged from previous surveys, and were Abraham Lincoln's two predecessors and successor, ranked so low due to their perceived failures before and after the