The Least and Most Popular Modern U.S. Presidents

As of July 2015, President Obama’s public approval rating was 44%, down significantly from his starting approval of 62%. To be fair, Obama still has around a year left in office, so his approval rating is far from final. But few presidents leave the White House more popular than when they entered.

So how does Obama stack up to the modern presidents when it comes to popularity?

Using data from Real Clear Politics and the Roper Center, InsideGov found the average approval ratings for the modern U.S. presidents (FDR onward). We also provide an overall breakdown of each president’s approval to gauge how public support shifted over time.

We’ll start with the least popular president and work our way to the most popular presidents in modern U.S. history.

*Note: We found the monthly approval ratings for each president and averaged them to get our final number. Job approval ratings for presidents were first introduced during FDR’s presidency.

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