There are two separate possible questions in the OP, and picking the question changes the answer.
Who was the least popular/had the lowest approval ratings of any president?
Who was the most fiercely hated president?
The answer to #1 is going to include Carter and Truman and several others who were considered by some large segment of the population to be ineffectual or wrong-headed or otherwise not the best person to hold the job.
The answer to #2 is going to include FDR, Lincoln, Reagan, Jefferson, and others who inspired both intense admiration and intense hatred.
Carter could wind up with the lowest approval rating inhistory, but I know very few people who hold a visceral hatred for the man, in the way that either Reagan or Clinton will make various people turn and spit after saying the name (or, as noted above, people who refused to even utter the name Roosevelt, that “traitor to his class”). Even today, Nixon has supporters who claim he was run out of office for doing what “everyone” has always done (although such fans have never shown me the evidence that any other president used the powers of the CIA and of the FBI and of the IRS to attack political enemies).
However, the Wallechinskys were probably using polls taken current to their publication in the late 1970s, when a lot of young boomers knew (and hated) Nixon more fiercely than some “historical” figure like Hitler.
One President who was roundly despised in his time but has been largely whitewashed by history is Woodrow Wilson. By the end of his second term, he was so universally despised that the Democrats lost to one of the least qualified candidates in our nation’s history, Warren G. Harding, by a massive landslide even though they dumped Wilson as candidate. Wilson’s overt racism cost him the black vote, and his dragging us into WWI along with many other military interventions around the globe killed any chance of reelection. The Dems were out of the White House until 1932 when FDR finally got back in after the party had reinvented itself.
Since presidents’ popularity tends to wax and wane during their terms (people like Nixon once), probably the lowest AVERAGE would be Tyler, for reasons already noted.
Wilson may have been whitewashed in our history textbooks, but your exposition needs a bit of nuance.
Wilson had already served two terms, so would not have run again in any case. (A lot of FDR supporters voted against him in 1940 for violating the tradition of the two-term presidency, fearing that extra terms could lead to a corruption of our republican principles.)
Wilson would not have run, in any event, since he was pretty much incapable of running, following his stroke.
The 1920 black vote was inconsequential, since, by that time Jim Crow had pretty well barred them from the ballot in the South while the great migration North was still a couple of years in the future.
Wilson’s progressive social policies were probably out of step with the laissez-faire attitudes of the Roaring 20s, so the Republicans were able to establish control of the presidency, but Wilson was not hated that much among established white citizens, who were quite content to swell the KKK to numbers never seen before or since and who heartily embraced the anti-immigration laws that were passed at that time.
(And since we wound up on the winning side of the war, that was not really held against him, either.)
Wilson was not a “lovable” individual, but I suspect that you may be confusing the intense reaction he inspired among a few marginalized groups with a general consensus of hatred that just was not there in the overall American public.
If Wilson were not hated, how could a political non-entity such as Harding have soundly crushed the democratic party with one of the most lopsided victories in American history? Satan could have run against the Democratic candidate (Cox) and won. As a rule, if you’re happy with your incumbent president, his successor should have a decent chance at winning and not be smashed by such a weak opponent. The mainstream voter was angry that Wilson had forced us into WWI and tried to force America out of its political isolationism. Right or wrong, that killed him as far as popularity. FDR faced the same obstacles when he tried to help the Allies against the Axis powers. Pearl Harbor solved that problem for him, though.
So what about Hoover? Was he as despised by a bitter America at the time as I think of him being, or is that an artifact of books and movies? (I mean, I’m pissed that I can’t find a job, and so are a lot of people, but while I know better than to blame it on the President I still don’t think anybody’s near to calling their van down the river something like a Hooverville.)
I still say Lincoln was the most hated. After all, several million people left the country when he got elected. Bush couldn’t even drive out Alec Baldwin and Barbra Streisand.
How much more af an “entity” was Cox than Harding?
There were a lot of reasons why the Republicans were able to take the 1920 election: a growing xenophobia (that was actually encouraged by Wilson, but not as much by Cox), the Republican campaign of “Return to Normalcy” after the disruptions of WWI and the Influenza epidemic.
Actually, it is clearer to see Wilson as a mild disruption of a long string of Republican victories from McKinley through Hoover. Wilson only captured the White House because Teddy Roosevelt split the Republicans in 1912. Wilson then used his presence as president to hang on to the White House 1916, something he could no more pass on to Cox from his sick bed than Clinton could pass on to Gore from under the cloud of the impeachment.
I am not claiming that Wilson was universally loved and admired. I am pointing out that there is little evidence for any genuine widespread antipathy or hatred toward Wilson.
Whenever John Tyler’s name comes up, I can’t help interjecting that I know President John Tyler’s grandson. Thaaaat’s right, two generations from a president who held office in the 1840’s. My friend is in his 70’s, was born when his dad was in his 70’s, who was born when his dad (the former president) was in his 70’s (he’s the youngest son of the youngest son of the president). Pretty cool!
Unfortunately, he’s a widower with only one unmarried daughter, who is in her 30’s. But we keep encouraging him to find a young lady and keep the tradition alive.
John Tyler had a lot of children. He was married twice and kept busy. He “met” his second wife when an explosion on a steamship that killed many people (including the Secretary of State) sent her into his arms.
That is amazing! My great-grandmother was born three months into Tyler’s Presidency, and died at age 97, three months after attending my parents’ marriage. My great-aunt, aunt, and father said she was a simply terrific person, with a keep-going attitude I hope to emulate as I get older.
To be precise, John Tyler fathered 15 children. 8 with his first wife and 7 with his second. His youngest child, Pearl, was born in 1860 and died in 1947 and had 8 children.
Tyler’s youngest son, Robert, lived from 1856-1927.
Well, that’s part of my point. I remember Ford saying that, and I remember thinking, “Huh?”
“Our long national nightmare” is the type of cliché tossed about only by the chattering class. The average American was having no nightmare except at the gas pump.
What about John Adam?. Didn’t he make all those laws and Acts, basically telling people they had to agree with him? I thought he was rather disliked and feared during his single(?) term.