When Americans are asked to name a US president who has done the best job in 40 years, most Democrats name Barack Obama. Republicans, by contrast, are divided between the president who served in the 1980s - Ronald Reagan - and the one currently running for a return to office, Donald Trump.
Roughly four in ten Republicans (41%) say Reagan has done the best job as president in 40 years. Slightly fewer (37%) believe that Trump was the best president, according to a Pew Research Center poll in July.
Nearly six in 10 Democrats or their supporters (58%) say Obama has done his best job as president in 40 years. Far fewer name Bill Clinton (19%) or Joe Biden (7%), who is running for re-election in 2024.
Over the past four decades, four Republicans and three Democrats have served as president. Among US adults as a whole, 32% think Obama did the best job of the period, followed by Reagan (23%), Trump (19%) and Clinton (12%). Relatively small shares include Biden, George W. Bush, or George H. W. Bush (4% or less each).
Americans' opinions about which presidents have done the best job in the past 40 years have hardly changed since the Center's September 2021 poll. The new poll comes after Trump was indicted in federal court in Florida on charges related to mishandling classified documents, but before indictments for trying to cancel the 2020 election.
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