Poll: Obama tops list ranking best president in Americans’ lifetime

More than 40 percent of Americans say that Barack Obama was the best or second-best president in their lifetime, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center.

The poll asked people in an open-ended format which president has done the best job in their lifetimes, using respondents’ first and second choices for the survey’s findings. 

Forty-four percent of Americans said Obama was either the best or the second-best president in their lifetime, with 33 percent saying the same for Bill Clinton. Thirty-two percent said Ronald Regan was the best or second-best president in their lifetime. 

Meanwhile, 19 percent said the same for President Trump, who has been in office since 2017.

The survey notes that Americans’ views on the best president is largely tied to their age. Millennials were more likely than older generations to list Obama as the best president in their lifetime, while older Americans are much more likely to name Reagan as the best president. 

Sixty-two percent of millennials believe Obama is either the best or second-best president in their lifetime. On the other hand, about 4 in 10 of the two older generations (baby boomers and the the silent generation) named Reagan the best president. 

Pew notes that most millenials were born after Reagan presided as president. 

The survey shows that a divide along party lines exists. Seventy-one percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say Obama is the best or second-best president in their lifetime. Meanwhile, 57 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents say Reagan was the best in their lifetime. 

The Pew survey was conducted from June 5 to 12 among a population of 2,002 adults. The survey has a margin of error of 2.6 percentage points.