New Poll Ranks America’s First Ladies by Approval Rating — and the Results Are Getting People Talking
A new poll surveying 2,255 Americans has ranked the country’s most recognizable First Ladies by public approval — and the results, which place Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis far ahead of the field while positioning current First Lady Melania Trump in negative territory, have reignited a broader conversation about public perception, political polarization, and the unique position the role of First Lady occupies in American life.
The YouGov poll, which used a methodology weighted by gender, age, race, education, 2024 presidential vote, 2020 election turnout, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status, offers one of the more comprehensive recent snapshots of how Americans feel about the women who have held the position — from those who served decades ago to those still in the public eye today.
Jackie Kennedy Stands Alone at the Top
The most striking finding from the poll is the extent to which Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis stands apart from every other First Lady measured.
Her net approval rating of +56 places her in a category of her own — more than twenty points ahead of the second-ranked figure, and the only First Lady in the poll to achieve a score in that range. The result underscores something that historians and pollsters have observed consistently: Kennedy Onassis occupies a unique position in American cultural memory that has not diminished with the passage of time. More than sixty years after her time in the White House, she remains the benchmark against which other First Ladies are implicitly measured.
Her approval rating reflects not only admiration for her role during the Kennedy administration but also the broader cultural legacy she built — in fashion, in arts patronage, in the way she conducted herself publicly during one of the most traumatic periods in modern American history.
The First Ladies Who Earned Positive Marks
Below Kennedy Onassis, a cluster of First Ladies from both political parties earned positive net approval ratings from respondents — a finding that suggests some degree of bipartisan goodwill remains possible for the role, even in the current political environment.
Rosalynn Carter registered a net approval of +32, placing her second overall in the poll. Her score reflects decades of public service work and advocacy, particularly in the areas of mental health awareness and caregiving — work she continued long after leaving the White House and maintained until her death in 2023.
Nancy Reagan came in at +25, followed by Lady Bird Johnson at +23. Barbara Bush and Michelle Obama both scored +21, while Laura Bush registered +19.
The presence of both Republican and Democratic First Ladies in positive territory — Reagan and Bush alongside Carter, Johnson, Obama, and Laura Bush — is one of the more notable aspects of the poll’s results, suggesting that the women who hold the role can earn broader approval than the partisan divides surrounding their husbands’ presidencies might predict.
Where Melania Trump Stands
Melania Trump’s net approval rating in the poll is -16, placing her in negative territory and below several of the figures she was measured against. She sits behind Jill Biden, who registered -9, but ahead of Hillary Clinton, whose -17 represents the lowest score recorded in the poll for a First Lady.
The result is consistent with broader trends in public opinion polling on Melania Trump, which has consistently shown her approval to be heavily shaped by partisan identity. The YouGov poll found that she performed significantly better among Republican respondents than among Democrats — a pattern that mirrors the polarization surrounding her husband’s two presidencies and that has defined public perception of her throughout her time in public life.
Melania Trump has maintained a notably private profile compared to many of her predecessors, limiting public appearances and speaking engagements in ways that have made her one of the less publicly visible First Ladies in recent history. Whether this privacy has contributed to her polling numbers — either by limiting negative exposure or by reducing the positive associations that come from sustained public engagement — is a matter of ongoing discussion among political analysts.
The poll arrives at a moment of renewed public attention on Melania Trump, coinciding with the release of her documentary. The film reportedly generated approximately $7 million during its opening weekend. Amazon reportedly paid $40 million to acquire the rights and invested an additional $35 million in marketing and promotion — figures that themselves generated considerable media commentary about the commercial appetite for content about the current First Lady regardless of her public approval numbers.
Hillary Clinton at the Bottom
The lowest net approval rating in the poll among First Ladies went to Hillary Clinton at -17 — one point below Melania Trump’s -16.
Clinton’s score reflects the unique trajectory of her public life. She is the only former First Lady in the poll who subsequently ran for president, serving as Secretary of State and becoming one of the most prominent and divisive political figures of the past three decades. Her approval rating as First Lady cannot be easily separated from public opinion formed across her entire public career — which has been defined as much by fierce partisan opposition as by genuine admiration from her supporters.
The negative ratings recorded for Clinton, Melania Trump, and Jill Biden collectively suggest that the most recent occupants of the role face a more polarized public environment than their predecessors — a reflection of the broader intensification of partisan division in American political life rather than necessarily a judgment on the individuals specifically.
The Presidential Rankings
The same poll extended its scope to former presidents, and the results in that section of the survey generated their own headlines.
Donald Trump ranked last among the twenty commanders-in-chief included in the poll, recording a net approval rating of -20. Approximately 48 percent of respondents rated his presidency as “poor,” with an additional 6 percent describing it as “below average.” Joe Biden emerged as the second least popular president in the survey.
These presidential rankings, while separate from the First Lady comparisons, provide useful context for understanding where Melania Trump’s numbers sit — and why the partisan divide in her approval ratings mirrors so closely the divisions surrounding her husband’s political legacy.
What the Poll Reveals About the Role Itself
Taken as a whole, the YouGov poll offers a few clear takeaways about how Americans perceive the role of First Lady and the women who have held it.
First, historical distance helps. The First Ladies who earned the highest approval ratings — Kennedy Onassis, Rosalynn Carter, Lady Bird Johnson — are those whose public images have had decades to settle into cultural memory, largely separated from the immediate partisan conflicts of their husbands’ administrations. Time appears to be a meaningful factor in public approval of the role.
Second, bipartisan goodwill is possible but increasingly difficult. The presence of both Republican and Democratic First Ladies in positive territory demonstrates that the role retains some capacity to earn approval across party lines — but the negative scores for more recent figures suggest that capacity is being eroded by the intensification of political polarization.
Third, the role is genuinely difficult to evaluate in isolation. First Ladies are not elected, do not hold formal power, and operate within a role that has no constitutional definition. And yet public opinion about them is shaped heavily by the political environment surrounding their husbands’ presidencies — meaning their approval ratings often tell us as much about partisan divides as they do about the individuals themselves.
The Broader Context
The poll comes at a moment when the role of First Lady is receiving heightened public attention — from Michelle Obama’s podcast launch and the discussion it generated about women’s autonomy, to Melania Trump’s documentary and the commercial and political conversation surrounding it.
Public appetite for content about and commentary on First Ladies appears strong, even as the partisan divide in how those figures are perceived has widened. That combination — high interest, deep division — is precisely what gives a poll like this one its staying power in public conversation.
The numbers are clear. What they mean, and whether they are a fair measure of the women they describe, is a question Americans appear far from finished debating.
