Reagan, and it's not even close.
He's credited for "winning the cold war", though that claim isn't actually backed up by historical evidence. The USSR's collapse had largely domestic reasons and is not the result of some mastermind foreign policy by Reagan. Reagan's record at home is rather bleak, too, as his economic policies led to a permanent decline of the American middle class and made the poor even poorer. He wasn't even the fiscal conservative he claimed to be, as the debt exploded under his watch. On top, you had major scandals like Iran Contra and his slow response to the Aids epidemic. As actor, Reagan for sure knew how to rally public support. But by all objective measures, his presidency was a failure.
I mean the economy after 1983 outside a cyclical minor recession in the early 1990s went on an 18 year boom period and I’d argue was the greatest economic period in our history. Also it’s a myth as median wages did go up significantly during his presidency while inflation went down as well . Lastly yes there were downsides to Reaganomics that started to negatively impact the public but there was a negative impact to the New Deal Consensus as well as the downsides of that consensus led to the 1970s malaise .
Also while Reagan alone doenst deserve the credit for the USSR collapsing the fact is his ending of detente was needed to push the Soviets over the edge. I’d also credit Truman/Eisenhower for aggressively countering communist advances around the world and Nixon for getting China on our side which made the Soviets desperate but Reagan was one of the 4 presidents most responsible for the US winning the Cold War .
Unless you are looking at it from a purely political/policy view there really is no reason to think Reagan wasn’t a great president which is why he is ranked in the top 8-12 by the vast majority of historians who also tend to lean liberal as well . So if anything they probably would have biases against him and still ranked him that high
