Years later, Obama enjoys a level of public support that Trump can only dream of

About a year ago, a national YouGov poll found that Barack Obama was “by far” the nation’s most well-liked political figure. A national CNN poll released last week pointed in a similar direction. From the network’s report:

This Video Is Trending Right Now →

Obama is viewed positively by 57% of Americans, a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS finds, far surpassing the ratings for his two Oval Office successors. Only 34% of the public offers a favorable opinion of President Donald Trump, with former President Joe Biden’s favorability trailing at just 30%.

Obama’s standing among political independents is more than twice as high as either Biden’s or Trump’s.

(The poll was conducted before the recent coverage of the opening of the Obama Center in Chicago, which offered the former president a hearty dose of positive coverage.)

While only about one-fifth of Republican voters say they have a positive view of Obama, that’s actually relatively high by contemporary standards: Other living presidents have far less support from voters of the opposing party.

The same survey asked an open-ended question about which president — alive or dead — Americans most admired. Obama again crushed the competition, leading the pack with 30%.

A couple of years ago, the latest edition of the Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey asked a group of scholars to rank every American president, and Obama fared quite well, finishing seventh, trailing only Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson and Harry Truman.