Where did Trump and Biden's general campaigns rank among campaigns since 1992

[OSR stands with Israel]

My ranking of them from best to worst would be:

1. Clinton 1992
2. Obama 2012
3. Bush 2004
4. Trump 2016
5. Bush 2000
6. Kerry 2004
7. Obama 2008(His primary campaign was great, general election not really)
8. Clinton 1996
9. Biden 2020
10. McCain 2008
11. Dole 1996
12. Trump 2020
13. Romney 2012
14. Hillary 2016
15. Gore 2000
16. Bush 1992

[MR DARK BRANDON]

1. Obama 2012
2. Clinton 1992
3. Trump 2016
4. Biden 2020
5. Obama 08
6. Bush 00
7. Bush 04
8.  Kerry 04
9. Clinton 1996
10. Mccain 08
11. Gore 08
12. Romney 2012
13. Bush 92
14. Clinton 2016
15. Trump 2020
16. Dole 1996

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

Biden 2020: Tied for first with Clinton '92, Clinton '96, Bush 2000, Bush '04, Obama '08, Obama '12 & Trump '16

Trump 2020: Tied for last with Bush '92, Dole '96, Gore 2000, Kerry '04, McCain '08, Romney '12 & Clinton '16

[darklordoftech]

1. Obama 2008
2. Obama 2012
3. Clinton 1992
4. Bush 2004
5. Romney 2012
6. Trump 2016
7. Biden 2020
8. Bush 2000
9. Bush 1992
10. Gore 2000
11. Kerry 2004
12. Trump 2020
13. Clinton 1996
14. Clinton 2016
15. Dole 1996
16. McCain 2008

[Alben Barkley]

1. Clinton 1992
2. Obama 2008
3. Obama 2012
4. Trump 2016
5. Biden 2020
6. Clinton 1996
7. Bush 2004
8. Bush 2000
9. Kerry 2004
10. Romney 2012
11. Bush 1992
12. Clinton 2016
13. Gore 2000
14. Dole 1996
15. McCain 2008
16. Trump 2020

[here2view]

1. Obama 2012
2. Clinton 1992
3. Bush 2004
4. Obama 2008
5. Trump 2016
6. Bush 2000
7. Biden 2020
8. Clinton 1996
9. Kerry 2004
10. Romney 2012
11. Gore 2000
12. Clinton 2016
13. McCain 2008
14. Dole 1996
15. Bush 1992
16. Trump 2020

[Mr. Smith]

The worst. Probably the most symmetrically incompetent since 2000.

[Skill and Chance]

The worst. Probably the symmetrically incompetent since 2000.

2020 and 2016 were clearly the worst run winning campaigns since at least 1976, but it's hard to pick between them! 

Trump 2020 squandered every opportunity to make COVID a populist USA vs. China issue.

Obama 2012 had to be the most impressive since at least Reagan.  An incumbent should not have held on in that environment, especially after seeing 2020. 

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

Biden 2020 has to be near the bottom. He took a year with perhaps the most heavily anti-incumbent fundamentals ever seen in a US Presidential election, and made it a close race.

[dw93]

1. Clinton 1992:He won rather decisively despite his baggage, despite challenging an Incumbent who, despite a weak economy and the GOP being in for 3 terms, was a successful President, and having a strong 3rd party candidate in the loop. Even a mediocre campaign by Clinton could've lost votes to Perot and narrowly handed Bush 2nd term.

2. Obama 2012: Even with a historically bad campaign by Romney, it's quite remarkable that an incumbent presided over a historically weak recovery and with unemployment being almost 8% on election day could win as decisively as he did. Obama took control of the narrative early and ran with it.

3. Bush 2000: He played his cards right in Texas and went into the primaries heavily favored to both win the nomination and the general, in an environment where the mid to late 90s economic boom and stability abroad should've given the Democrats an easy win. Granted the polls got close in the Summer and outside of a few instances, the fall, but that was arguably due to the Gore campaign starting to get its s**t together late in the game than any screw ups from the Bush campaign. Without the DUI arrest, Bush likely would've won the popular vote, and on a good night, won an additional state (NM, IA, or WI).

4. Kerry 2004: The best of the losing campaigns. Despite "being for it before he was against it" Kerry ran a good enough campaign to make an election that could've decisively gone to Bush a close one.

5. Trump 2016: I'm not of the belief Trump was the only Republican could win. With that said, he still won when no one thought he would and his campaign did so by outfoxing the Democrats in the rust belt. Who honestly believed at the time that a Republican win would include all of WI, MI, PA, and ME 2nd?

6. Bush 2004: Probably the dirtiest campaign of all of them. They grabbed enough control of the narrative and defined Kerry early and effectively. That said, given how close the election was, this campaign made way too many crucial mistakes and based on the fundamentals (as well as the results of 2012 being in mind), I can't rake this campaign as highly as others do.

7. Biden 2020: They made their mistakes (particularly on the policing/crime issue), that said I don't think there's enough they could've done differently. Holding rallies and doing door to door would've undercut Biden's message on taking COVID and made him look like a hypocrite. If they played their cards right, Biden could've done better, but not much better, I think they played their cards well enough given the circumstances despite their mistakes, but if there was ever a campaign that was damned if they did and damned if they didn't it was the Biden campaign.

8. Obama 2008: Obama played the primaries brilliantly, but after the primaries, the campaign coasted in the general election and as the economy got worse and Palin continued to shoot the McCain campaign in the foot. The General election campaign wasn't bad, but with hindsight, it was just lazy and doing a little more than coasting might've flipped MO or even MT.

9. Clinton 1996: Even lazier than Obama's 2008 campaign. They lost three states that they won in 1992 and only gained two Bush states thanks only to Perot as well as Gingrich's proposed cuts to Medicare scarring off seniors. They also did nothing to help the party down ticket. A better run campaign, given the economy, stability abroad, and a weakened  opposition would've seen stronger down ticket coattails, and  holding onto at least some of CO, MT, and GA.

10. Gore 2000: They screwed up royally early on in the campaign and should've never picked Lieberman. That said, they started to get their sh**t together late in the campaign, making the election as close as it was (and arguably winning it). Had they gotten it right from the start, Gore likely would've been President and the world today would be a better place.

11. Dole 1996: They didn't make an crucial mistakes, but didn't get anything right either. Granted, no one thought Dole was gonna win and Dole himself, IIRC, knew his chances were slim to none, but still Clinton not winning by a bigger margin despite a good environment, was solely due to the safe, lazy nature of Clinton's campaign, than any positives of the Dole campaign.

12. McCain 2008: This campaign made one mistake after the other (Palin, "the fundamentals of the economy are strong," etc...) . That said, other campaigns making bigger mistakes in more winnable environments keep this campaign from being further down on the list.

13. Trump 2020: Trump could've made COVID his 9/11 and rallied enough of the country behind him to win a 2nd term. Instead, he arguably made it his Iranian Hostage crisis, and accordingly lost the election. On top of that, instead of working to secure states they only narrowly won in 2016 (WI, PA, MI), they went chasing fool's gold in a state like MN, and even managed to let AZ and GA, which haven't voted Democrat in 24 and 28 years respectively, narrowly slip away. The margins in the deciding states, arguably the win in NC, as well as the GOP netting gains in the House was largely due to "Defund the Police" weighing the Democrats down, and polarization.

14. Hillary 2016: While the fundamentals didn't favor the Democrats, Trump was a gift wrapped opponent  that was supposedly in the same class of electablity as Goldwater and McGovern, and the Clinton campaign managed to loose to him. They took the base for granted and even went out of their way to piss them off ("Pokemon go to the polls" and "basement dwellers" anyone?) in the name of chasing "never Trump Republicans" (which there weren't many off) that were never gonna vote for her to begin with, allowing Trump to outfox them in the rust belt and pull off one of the greatest political upsets in history. The only reason she's not ranked lower is because she won the popular vote.

15. Romney 2012: Challenging an Incumbent, who granted was dealt a terrible hand to begin with, that was presiding over a historically weak recovery and presiding over an unemployment rate that didn't fall below 8% until around election day, you'd think, on paper, that Romeny would've won or at the very least kept it close. Instead, he got his ass whooped. He wore his worst traits/gaffes as a badge of honor ("I like being able to fire people," "corporations are people my friend," "47%. etc...) and ran too far to the right in the general in the name of winning voters that were already gonna hold their noses and vote for him anyway. While he was vindicated on Russia and even China to some extent, he was completely out of step with the issues and challenges, particularly the domestic ones, of the time and it showed in the end result of the election.

16. Bush 1992: Even with the early 90's recession and breaking a silly tax pledge, a President that oversaw the end of a 40 year Cold War, had the biggest hand in reunifying Germany, and led the country to victory in the quickest war in our history had no business losing as badly as he did, if he even had to lose at all, especially with an opponent who had as much baggage as Bill Clinton, as well as a third party candidate that they could've used to their advantage to split the "change vote." Buchanan should've been a warning sign to them, and even after a strong performance in New Hampshire by him, they waited too long to meaningfully campaign, and as a result, by the summer, Bush was toast.

[DaleCooper]

Biden 2020 has to be near the bottom. He took a year with perhaps the most heavily anti-incumbent fundamentals ever seen in a US Presidential election, and made it a close race.

It wasn't all just "re-alignment" either. Biden and the Democrats made so many terrible decisions as far as campaigning goes. Even though the scientific evidence surrounding the danger of COVID was still quite unknown, there was no reason for Biden and Democrats not to be doing outdoor town halls and drive-in rallies as soon as the beginning of May. The rioting was also a huge failure on their part. Something Biden and Democrats could've safely done was immediately (once the violence stopped) show up and support those whose property was destroyed by the rioting, which shows both empathy and strength when we had a president that was infamously hiding in a bunker. Biden's invisibility was pretty pathetic, at the time and especially in hindsight. He also missed a huge opportunity to blame Trump for the shutdowns. Rather than make the election a battle over staying inside and only leaving home to go to Walmart, Biden should've tied Trump to the shutdowns.

Of course hindsight is 2020, but even at the time these should've been pretty obvious to political campaigners that were even remotely in touch with the American voter.

[SaneDemocrat]

Biden 2020 has to be near the bottom. He took a year with perhaps the most heavily anti-incumbent fundamentals ever seen in a US Presidential election, and made it a close race.

Totally agree

[Non Swing Voter]

People are being way too harsh on Obama 2008.  It's pretty much the closest thing to a modern day blowout we've seen or will see in some time.  He expanded the map where appropriate (VA/CO) and even in unexpected places (like IN).  The important thing is winning and trying to bring some senators across the finish line, not overextending yourself and screwing up (Hillary 2016).

[Non Swing Voter]

Also, I'd rank Hillary 2016 below Gore or Romney. 

To some extent 2020 proved that we all underestimated Trump and his cult.  However, she ran a horrendous campaign.  She didn't even campaign in some states that flipped "unexpectedly."  She did campaign hard in PA so perhaps ignoring MI/WI didn't matter anyway, but the fact that she lost MI to Bernie in the primary then acted like nothing was wrong there (and in similar areas) was a huge mistake.  I actually think she's probably a likable person IRL but she didn't convey that with the way she was anointed the heir apparent of the Dem party.

[darklordoftech]

Also, I'd rank Hillary 2016 below Gore or Romney. 

To some extent 2020 proved that we all underestimated Trump and his cult.  However, she ran a horrendous campaign.  She didn't even campaign in some states that flipped "unexpectedly."  She did campaign hard in PA so perhaps ignoring MI/WI didn't matter anyway, but the fact that she lost MI to Bernie in the primary then acted like nothing was wrong there (and in similar areas) was a huge mistake.  I actually think she's probably a likable person IRL but she didn't convey that with the way she was anointed the heir apparent of the Dem party.

I ranked Hillary 2016 below all the others except for Dole 1996 and McCain 2008.

[Pericles]

Biden 2020 has to be near the bottom. He took a year with perhaps the most heavily anti-incumbent fundamentals ever seen in a US Presidential election, and made it a close race.

Trump got about the same share that his approval rating was. Biden was a strong candidate who had net positive favorability ratings and so could consolidate virtually all the Trump disapprovers. So unfortunately, there isn't an easy fix for Democrats-Trump voters liked Trump and what he stood for. That's a bit different from 2016 where Trump won a lot of people who disliked him, Hillary being the second most unpopular major party nominee in history was a big factor in the outcome.

[OSR stands with Israel]

People are being way too harsh on Obama 2008.  It's pretty much the closest thing to a modern day blowout we've seen or will see in some time.  He expanded the map where appropriate (VA/CO) and even in unexpected places (like IN).  The important thing is winning and trying to bring some senators across the finish line, not overextending yourself and screwing up (Hillary 2016).

I don’t think winning margins is everything since fundamentals play a huge part in the margin as well . For example while Reagan won a huge landslide in 1984 , I’d say his campaign was meh and maybe slightly good because he basically matched his approval rating and I’d say Obama’s 2012 campaign was more impressive than Reagan’s 84 one

[GregTheGreat657]

1. Clinton 1992
2. Trump 2016
3. Clinton 1996
4. Obama 2012
5. Bush 2000
6. Bush 2004
7. Obama 2008
8. Biden 2020
9. Kerry 2004
10. Romney 2012
11. Gore 2000
12. Clinton 2016
13. Trump 2020
14. Bush 1992
15. Dole 1996
16. McCain 2008

[Oregon Eagle Politics]

Biden 2020 has to be near the bottom. He took a year with perhaps the most heavily anti-incumbent fundamentals ever seen in a US Presidential election, and made it a close race.

1932 probably had the most heavily anti-incumbent fundamentals in a US Election