Heights of presidents and presidential candidates of the United States

A record of the heights of the presidents of the United States and presidential candidates is useful for evaluating what role, if any, height plays in presidential elections. 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 .
Joe Biden, the current president, is according to a physical examination summary from December 2019.
Electoral success as a function of height.
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.
There are more data if the relationship of electoral success to height difference starts from the year 1900, rather than from the beginning of televised debates. In the thirty-one presidential elections between 1900 and 2020, twenty of the winning candidates have been taller than their opponents, while nine have been shorter, and two were the same height. On average the winner was taller than the loser.
However, it may be argued that drawing the line at any date ignores the fact that pictorial depictions presidential hopefuls have been available to the American public at large well before debates were televised. Stereographs were widely used as a form of photojournalism for historical events (including political events) by the 1870s. Cutting off the date at 1900 excludes the seven presidential elections immediately preceding where the taller candidate won only "once" (which, when included, partially equalizes the ratio to 21 taller vs 14 shorter winners between 1872 and 2020). Considering that political cartoons and text-based descriptions of candidates have been a staple of American politics since the beginning, one could argue that Americans have always been able to compare candidates by height. Thus, upon including all elections until 2016 where the heights of each candidate are known, the average height of the winner above the loser drops to a mere ; this average height difference becomes little more than a round-off error—a mere —when excluding the 2016 election, in which gender not only accounted for the height difference, but was likely the greater physical distinction between the two main candidates than height.
The claims about taller candidates winning almost all modern presidential elections is still pervasive, however. Examples of such views include:
A comparison of the heights of the winning presidential candidate with the losing candidate from each election since 1788 is provided below to evaluate such views.
Comparative table of heights of United States presidential candidates.
Notes:
† Ran unopposed
Extremes.
The tallest president elected to office was Abraham Lincoln (). Portrait artist Francis Bicknell Carpenter supplies the information for Lincoln:
Mr. Lincoln's height was six feet three and three-quarter inches "in his stocking-feet." He stood up one day, at the right of my large canvas, while I marked his exact height upon it.
A disputed theory holds that Lincoln's height is the result of the genetic condition multiple endocrine neoplasia type 2b (MEN2B); see medical and mental health of Abraham Lincoln.
Only slightly shorter than Lincoln was Lyndon B. Johnson (), the tallest President who originally entered office without being elected directly.
The shortest President elected to office was James Madison (); the shortest President to originally enter the office by means other than election is tied between Millard Fillmore and Harry S. Truman (both were ).
The tallest unsuccessful presidential candidate (who is also the tallest of all presidential candidates) is Winfield Scott, who stood at and lost the 1852 election to Franklin Pierce, who stood at . The second tallest unsuccessful candidate is John Kerry, at . The shortest unsuccessful presidential candidate is Stephen A. Douglas, at . The next shortest is Hillary Clinton, who lost the 2016 election and is .
The largest height difference between two presidential candidates (out of the candidates whose heights are known) was in the 1860 election, when Abraham Lincoln stood taller than opponent Stephen A. Douglas. The second-largest difference was in the 1812 election, with De Witt Clinton standing taller than incumbent James Madison. The 2016 election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton has the third largest difference at .