Presidential rankings tend to be subjective and divisive, but they also provide valuable insight into how historical views of presidents evolve over time.
In a recent survey, nearly 200 political science scholars ranked US presidents on a scale of 0-100, from failure (zero) to average (50) to great (100). The totals were then averaged for each president and ranked from highest to lowest.
A majority of the 170 respondents - roughly 57% - identified as Democrats. Just 13% were Republicans, while 27% said they were independents, and 3% selected other. The skewed sampling plus the fact that President Donald Trump is in the middle of his second year in office make it difficult to accurately compare him to previous presidents.
But even among Republicans, Trump was ranked quite unfavorably. Respondents who identified as Republicans or conservatives ranked Trump 40th out of 44 presidents. Self-described Democrats and liberals both ranked him last.
Here are the greatest US presidents, ranked according to current and recent members of the American Political Science Association: