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thumb|Presidents have trended to be taller over time, as shown using [[linear trend estimation.]]
A record of the heights of the presidents and presidential candidates of the United States is useful for evaluating what role, if any, height plays in presidential elections in the United States. Some observers have noted that the taller of the two major-party candidates tends to prevail, and argue this is due to the public's preference for taller candidates.
The tallest U.S. president was Abraham Lincoln at , while the shortest was James Madison at . The average height of the 45 U.S. presidents is .
Donald Trump, the current president, is tall, according to the White House physician (as of April 2025). Trump's height is disputed; he is generally considered shorter than his officially listed height of .
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| align="center" | 2 || align="center" | 36 || Lyndon B. Johnson || ||
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| rowspan="2" align="center" |3|| align="center" | 3 || Thomas Jefferson || ||
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| align="center"| 42 || Bill Clinton || ||
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| rowspan="4" align="center"|5|| align="center"|21 || Chester A. Arthur || ||
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| align="center"| 41 || George H. W. Bush || ||
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| align="center" | 45, 47 || Donald Trump || ||
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| align="center" rowspan="2" |9 || align="center" | 1 || George Washington || ||
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| align="center" | 44 || Barack Obama ||
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| align="center" rowspan="3" |11|| align="center"| 7 || Andrew Jackson || ||
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| align="center"| 35 || John F. Kennedy ||
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| align="center"| 40 || Ronald Reagan || ||<br />
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| align="center"| 10 || John Tyler ||
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| align="center"| 46 || Joe Biden ||
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| rowspan="4" align="center" |21|| align="center"| 27 || William Howard Taft ||
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| align="center"| 31 || Herbert Hoover ||
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| align="center"| 37 || Richard Nixon ||
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| align="center"| 43 || George W. Bush ||
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| align="center" rowspan="2" |25||align="center"| 22, 24 || Grover Cleveland ||
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| align="center" | 27 || align="center" | 34 || Dwight D. Eisenhower ||
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| align="center" rowspan="4" |36|| align="center" | 9 || William Henry Harrison||
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| align="center"| 12 || Zachary Taylor ||
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| align="center" |40|| align="center" | 6 || John Quincy Adams ||
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| align="center" rowspan="2" |41|| align="center" | 2 || John Adams ||
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| align="center"| 25 || William McKinley ||
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| align="center"| 23 || Benjamin Harrison ||
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| align="center" |45|| align="center" | 4 || James Madison ||
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Electoral success as a function of height
{| style="float:right;"
| colspan=2 | thumb|300px|right|Graph of winner vs. loser heights in presidential elections, 1789–2004
|}
Folk wisdom about U.S. presidential politics holds that the taller of the two major-party candidates always wins or almost always wins since the advent of the televised presidential debate.
A number of studies have been published, but many have methodological issues,
- A 1975 book called First Impressions: The Psychology of Encountering Others notes: "Elevator Shoes, Anyone? One factor which has a far-reaching influence on how people are perceived, at least in American society, is height. From 1900 to 1968 the man elected U.S. president was always the taller of the two candidates. (Richard Nixon was slightly shorter than George McGovern.)"
- A 1978 book titled The Psychology of Person Identification states: "They also say that every President of the USA elected since the turn of the [20th] century has been the taller of the two candidates (Jimmy Carter being an exception)."
- A 1988 article in the Los Angeles Times fashion section about a haberdasher devoted to clothing shorter men included a variation of the tale: "Stern says he just learned that Dukakis is 5 feet, 8 inches. 'Did you know,' he adds, noticeably disappointed, 'that since 1900 the taller of the two candidates always wins?'"
- A 1997 book called How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You discusses the issue in a section about the importance of height: "What about height? One assumes the taller the better, because our culture venerates height. In fact, practically every president elected in the United States since 1900 was the taller of the two candidates."
- A 1999 book, Survival of the Prettiest by Nancy Etcoff, repeated a version of the legend in a section on the power of heights: "... Since 1776 only [two Presidents,] James Madison and Benjamin Harrison[,] have been below-average height. The easiest way to predict the winner in a United States election is to bet on the taller man: in this century you would have had an unbroken string of hits until 1972 when Richard Nixon beat George McGovern."
- A chapter titled "Epistemology at the Core of Postmodernism" in the 2002 book Telling the Truth: Evangelizing Postmodernisms makes this observation: "I remember the subversive effect the observation had on me that in every U.S. presidential race, the taller of the two candidates had been elected. It opened up space for a counterdiscourse to the presumed rationality of the electoral process."
- The height of Donald Trump has repeatedly come under question and is common topic in popular culture about Trump. Trump claims he is but older documents indicate
Comparative table of heights of United States presidential candidates
thumb|300px|right|Secretary [[John Kerry|Kerry compares his height to that of a statue of George Washington while touring National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.]]
<!--Note: The criterion is "tallest" rather than "taller" to take account elections where there were more than two candidates running. In those elections, the winning candidate must be taller than all his/her opponents to count as an instance of the taller candidate winning. -->
{| class="wikitable"
|-
| style="background:#beb;"| <small> Taller candidate was elected </small>|| style="background:#ffd;"| <small> Shorter candidate was elected </small>
|-
| style="background:#c8ccd1;"| <small> Winner and opponent were of the same height </small> || style="background:#fff;"| <small> Comparison data unavailable </small>
|}
{| class="wikitable sortable sort-under-center sticky-header"
|- align="top"
! Election !! Winner<br /><small>in Electoral College</small> !!colspan="2"| Height !! Main opponent(s)<br /><small>during election</small> !!colspan="2"| Height !! data-sort-type="number" colspan="2"| Difference
|- style="background:#beb; text-align:center;"
|| 2024 || Donald Trump ||
|| Kamala Harris || ||
|- style="background:#ffd; text-align:center;"
|| 2020 || Joe Biden ||
|| Donald Trump || ||
|- style="background:#beb; text-align:center;"
|| 2016 || Donald Trump ||
|| Hillary Clinton || ||
|- style="background:#c8ccd1; text-align:center;"
| 2012 || Barack Obama || || Mitt Romney|| ||
|- style="background:#beb; text-align:center;"
| 2008 || Barack Obama || || John McCain || ||
|- style="background:#ffd; text-align:center;"
| 2004 || George W. Bush || || John Kerry || ||
|- style="background:#ffd; text-align:center;"
| 2000 || George W. Bush || ||Al Gore ||align="right"|6 ft 2 in<br />5 ft 5 in || align="right"|188 cm<br />165 cm ||align="right" data-sort-value=".5"| in<br />9 in || align="right"|1 cm<br />24 cm
|- style="background:#beb; text-align:center;"
| 1988 || George H. W. Bush || || Michael Dukakis || ||
|- style="background:#beb; text-align:center;"
| 1968 || Richard Nixon ||
|| Hubert Humphrey||align="right"|5 ft 11 in<br />5 ft 7 in || align="right"|180 cm<br />170 cm ||align="right" data-sort-value=".5"| in<br />4 in || align="right"|1 cm<br />12 cm
|- style="background:#beb; text-align:center;"
| 1964 || Lyndon B. Johnson || || Barry Goldwater ||align="right"|5 ft 10 in<br />5 ft 5 in || align="right"|180 cm<br />165 cm ||align="right" data-sort-value=".5"| in<br />5 in || align="right"|1 cm<br />13 cm
|- style="background:#beb; text-align:center;"
| 1920 || Warren G. Harding || || James M. Cox || ||
|- style="background:#beb; text-align:center;"
| 1916 || Woodrow Wilson || || Charles Evans Hughes || ||
|- style="background:#beb; text-align:center;"
| 1904 || Theodore Roosevelt || ||Alton B. Parker || ||
|- style="background:#ffd; text-align:center;"
| 1880 || James A. Garfield || ||Winfield Hancock || ||
|- style="background:#ffd; text-align:center;"
| 1876 || Rutherford B. Hayes || || Samuel Tilden || ||
|- style="background:#ffd; text-align:center;"
| 1872 || Ulysses S. Grant || || Horace Greeley || ||
|- style="background:white; text-align:center;"
| 1868 || Ulysses S. Grant || || Horatio Seymour|| || || ||
|- style="background:#beb; text-align:center;"
| 1864 || Abraham Lincoln || || George B. McClellan || ||
|- style="background:#beb; text-align:center;"
| 1860 || Abraham Lincoln || || Stephen A. Douglas<br />John C. Breckinridge || align=right|5 ft 4 in<br />6 ft 2 in || align="right"|163 cm<br />188 cm || align="right"|12 in<br />2 in || align="right"|30 cm<br />5 cm
|- style="background:#beb; text-align:center;"
| 1856 || James Buchanan || || Millard Fillmore<br />John C. Frémont || align="right"|<span style="display:none">69 in</span>5 ft 9 in<br />5 ft 9 in || align="right"|175 cm<br />175 cm || align="right"|3 in<br />3 in || align="right"|8 cm<br />8 cm
|- style="background:#ffd; text-align:center;"
| 1852 || Franklin Pierce || || Winfield Scott || ||
|- style="background:#ffd; text-align:center;"
| 1848 || Zachary Taylor || || Lewis Cass || ||
|- style="background:#ffd; text-align:center;"
| 1844 || James K. Polk || || Henry Clay || ||
|- style="background:#beb; text-align:center;"
| 1840 || William Henry Harrison || || Martin Van Buren || ||
|- style="background:#ffd; text-align:center;"
| 1836 || Martin Van Buren || || Hugh Lawson White<br />William Henry Harrison || align="right"|5 ft 11 in<br /><span style="display:none">68 in</span>5 ft 8 in || align="right"|180 cm<br />173 cm || align="right"|5 in<br />2 in || align="right"|13 cm<br />5 cm
|- style="background:#c8ccd1; text-align:center;"
| 1832 || Andrew Jackson || || Henry Clay || ||
|- style="background:#beb; text-align:center;"
| 1828 || Andrew Jackson || || John Quincy Adams || ||
|- style="background:#ffd; text-align:center;"
| 1824 || John Quincy Adams || || William H. Crawford<br />Andrew Jackson**<br />Henry Clay || align="right"|6 ft 3 in<br /><span style="display:none">73 in</span>6 ft 1 in<br /><span style="display:none">73 in</span>6 ft 1 in || align="right"|191 cm<br />185 cm<br />185 cm || align="right"| in<br /> in<br /> in || align="right"|19 cm<br />14 cm<br />14 cm
|- style="background:#fff; text-align:center;"
| 1820 || James Monroe† || || || || || ||
|- style="background:#fff; text-align:center;"
| 1816 || James Monroe || || Rufus King || || || ||
|- style="background:#ffd; text-align:center;"
| 1812 || James Madison || || DeWitt Clinton || ||
|- style="background:#ffd; text-align:center;"
| 1808 || James Madison || || Charles C. Pinckney || ||
|- style="background:#beb; text-align:center;"
| 1804 || Thomas Jefferson || || Charles C. Pinckney || ||
|- style="background:#beb; text-align:center;"
| 1800 || Thomas Jefferson || || John Adams || ||
|- style="background:#ffd; text-align:center;"
| 1796 || John Adams || || Thomas Jefferson || ||
|- style="background:#fff; text-align:center;"
| 1792 || George Washington†|| || || || || ||
|- style="background:#fff; text-align:center;"
| 1788–89 || George Washington†|| || || || || ||
|}
Notes:
<nowiki>**</nowiki> Lost the House of Representatives vote, but received the most popular votes and a plurality of electoral votes; however, not the majority needed to win.
† Ran unopposed
Extremes
thumb|President Lincoln at [[Battle of Antietam|Antietam in October 1862 with eventual 1864 opponent Gen. George B. McClellan (second from left)]]
The tallest president elected to office was Abraham Lincoln (). Portrait artist Francis Bicknell Carpenter supplies the information for Lincoln: