Most Democratic voters say that they believe former President Barack Obama was a better president than founding father and first U.S. president George Washington, according to a recent poll.
The Monmouth University poll found that 63 percent of Democrats thought that Obama was a better president than Washington. Only 29 percent of those polled thought that Washington was better than the 44th president.
Out of all the registered voters surveyed, 58 percent said Washington was a better president than Obama, who had 33 percent supporting him.
Compared to President Donald Trump, Washington got 71 percent support, while only 15 percent thought Trump was a better president than the founding father.
Among Republicans, 44 percent of them said Washington was a better president than Trump, while 37 percent said Trump is a better president than Washington.
The founding father beat out both modern-day presidents among independents, with 72 percent who say he is better than Trump and 62 percent who say he is better than Obama.
Patrick Murray, who serves as the director of Monmouth University’s polling institute, said that there could be “a combination of factors at work” with a polling question like this.
“Democrats may be more likely than Republicans to be influenced by recency bias, valuing what they are familiar with over historical opinion,” Murray said. “It’s a fun question to ask, but I’m not sure what it means.”
The following poll was “inspired” by another recent survey which asked respondents whether Trump or Abraham Lincoln was a better “Republican president.”
The poll, conducted by the Economist/YouGov, found that 53 percent of voters favored Trump as a leader over Lincoln while 47 percent of respondents chose the Civil War-era leader over Trump.
The Monmouth poll was conducted by phone between December 4 and December 8, and surveyed 903 adults, with polling results based on 838 registered voters.