Even if first-100-day productivity has declined, however, it remains one of a president’s best chances to enact his agenda, according to work by Casey Dominguez. Looking at the question of the “presidential honeymoon,” Dominguez found that, when looking at bills on which presidents took public positions, chief executives do enjoy greater rates of success with Congress early on. This is not fully explained by a public opinion bounce (most incoming presidents are popular) or by strategic choices about which bills to support during the first 100 days. Her research concludes that presidents do enjoy a “100-day honeymoon” with Congress, and that their influence during this period is demonstrably higher than later on in the administration.

Of course, legislation is not the only yardstick of presidential success. New presidents can also take advantage of their unilateral power to direct the executive branch. For example, Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama issued memoranda reversing the previous administration’s rules about abortion funding and international aid shortly after taking office. One of Jimmy Carter’s early executive orders was related to his pardon of Vietnam draft-dodgers. For some time, unilateral action during the first 100 days seemed to be on the decline, but it climbed back up under Obama.

Here are the number of executive orders issued by each president since FDR during their first 100 days, as well as the number of executive orders from other presidents they revoked. On balance, modern presidents have issued more executive orders in their first 100 days than the second 100 days. There are some exceptions, though — George W. Bush, Carter, Dwight Eisenhower and FDR.2