Year Created: 2021
Historical Theme:
Collection this Document is Affiliated with:
Description: Since 2000, C-SPAN has conducted a survey of historians on presidential leadership each time there has been a change in administrations. For each survey, we bring in a cross-section of presidential historians and ask them to rank the country's former chief executives on the same 10 characteristics of leadership. The survey serves as an initial take on a president's term soon after they have left office and shows how the impact of a presidency has changed over time. A new survey, C-SPAN's fifth, will be released in 2025 and will include President Biden for the first time.
Categories of Documents:
Historians Survey Results Category
Total Scores/Overall Rankings
William J. Clinton
| 2021 | 2017 | 2009 | 2000 | |
| Total Score | 594 | 634 | 605 | 539 |
| Overall Rank | 19 | 15 | 14 | 21 |
| Category | 2021 Final Score | Overall Rankings | |||
| 2021 | 2017 | 2009 | 2000 | ||
| Public Persuasion | 73.4 | 10 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| Crisis Leadership | 57.7 | 20 | 18 | 15 | 20 |
| Economic Management | 73.6 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 5 |
| Moral Authority | 30 | 38 | 38 | 37 | 41 |
| International Relations | 58.7 | 19 | 18 | 16 | 21 |
| Administrative Skills | 59.4 | 22 | 20 | 20 | 21 |
| Relations with Congress | 52.2 | 23 | 17 | 19 | 36 |
| Vision / Setting an Agenda | 60.2 | 19 | 19 | 15 | 22 |
| Pursued Equal Justice For All | 66.6 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 5 |
| Performance Within Context of Times | 61.9 | 20 | 17 | 16 | 21 |
Citation: “2021 Presidential Historians Survey.” C-SPAN, 2021, www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2021/?page=overall.