Barack Obama led the most-admired-president question in a CNN poll released June 18, 2026, with 30% of U.S. adults naming him, ahead of Donald Trump at 19%.
Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan each received 9%. The findings describe Americans’ responses to an open-ended admiration question, rather than a historians’ assessment of presidential achievement.
The timing also needs to be clear: although the results were published in June, SSRS conducted the interviews from May 7 through May 31. They should not be presented as a new October survey.
How Barack Obama compared with other presidents
CNN’s reporting identified Obama as the most frequently named president. John F. Kennedy received 6%, while George Washington received 5%.
Bill Clinton was named by 2%, and Joe Biden and George W. Bush each received 1%. Another 1% named Bush without specifying which president. Nearly one in 10 respondents named no president or offered no opinion.
Obama’s lead over Trump was 11 percentage points, calculated by subtracting 19 from 30. That is a difference between percentages, rather than a statement that Obama was 11% more admired.
His 30% share was a plurality: the largest individual share among the answers. It was not a majority, which would require more than half of respondents.
Party affiliation shaped the answers
The overall result differed from the results within each political party. CNN reported that 64% of Democrats named Obama as the president they most admired.
Among Republicans, Trump led with 53%, followed by Reagan at 18% and Lincoln at 8%. Kennedy and Washington each received 5% among Republican respondents.
These figures describe separate groups. Trump’s 53% among Republicans should not be substituted for his 19% overall result, just as Obama’s Democratic support should not be substituted for his national figure.
The distinction helps explain how two headlines about the same poll can emphasize different leaders. One concerns the full public surveyed; another concerns a party subgroup.
Admiration and favorability were separate measures
SSRS’s announcement of the CNN survey also reported favorable views of living presidents. Obama received a 57% favorable rating, compared with Trump’s 34% and Biden’s 30%.
Those results answer a different question from naming a single most-admired president. A person can view several presidents favorably while selecting only one when asked whom they admire most.
Obama’s 57% favorability therefore should not be described as the percentage choosing him as their most-admired president. Conversely, his 30% admiration result does not mean only 30% viewed him positively.
What the methodology and dates establish
According to SSRS, the nationwide survey included 2,480 adults and used online and telephone interviews. Respondents were contacted by mail, telephone or text.
The combined sample came from address-based sampling and a random-digit-dial sample of prepaid mobile telephone numbers. The reported margin of sampling error for the full sample was plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.
That full-sample margin should not automatically be applied to smaller party groups. Sampling uncertainty also does not capture every possible source of survey error.
The fieldwork dates identify the period being measured. Republishing the findings months later does not update those interviews or establish that public preferences have remained unchanged.
A finding about public memory, not a final historical verdict
The Barack Obama Presidential Library confirms that Obama served as the 44th president from 2009 to 2017 and was the first Black American to hold the office.
That historical record is separate from judgments about which president deserves the most admiration. Hourly Times’ earlier discussion of presidential legacy and public honor explores that distinction.
Admiration can reflect personal memory, party loyalty or a respondent’s own priorities. This question records the name selected; it does not provide a complete explanation of why each person chose that president.
The supported conclusion is specific: Obama received the largest share in this survey’s admiration question. The result does not establish an objective ranking of every president’s performance or a permanent verdict across American history.
