Jimmy Carter of his home in Plains, Georgia. Carter noted in 2006 that a funeral in Washington, D.C., with visitation at the Carter Center was planned as well. In the wake of Nixon's Watergate scandal, exit polls from the 1976 presidential election suggested that many still held Gerald Ford's pardon of Nixon against him. By comparison, Carter was viewed as a sincere, honest, and well-meaning Southerner. Carter began his term with a 66 percent approval rating, which had dropped to 34 percent approval by the time he left office, with 55 percent disapproving. In the 1980 campaign, former California Governor Ronald Reagan
Presidency of Jimmy Carter as a below-average president. A 2018 poll of the American Political Science Association's Presidents and Executive Politics section ranked Carter as the 26th best president. A 2017 C-Span poll of historians also ranked Carter as the 26th best president. Some critics have compared Carter to Herbert Hoover, who was similarly a "hardworking but uninspiring technocrat." Robert A. Strong writes: Jimmy Carter is much more highly regarded today than when he lost his bid for reelection in 1980. He has produced an exemplary post-presidency, and today there is an increased appreciation for the enormity of the task he took on in