President Biden is highly rated in historian surveys regarding presidential greatness, but is in a close race with former President Trump, who ranks last.
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Jim Watson and Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
President Biden is highly rated in historian surveys regarding presidential greatness, but is in a close race with former President Trump, who ranks last.
Jim Watson and Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
Recent polls show President Biden is running a close race to prevent former President Donald Trump from taking back the White House. But 154 historians and presidential experts think otherwise. They rank Biden in the top third of US presidents, while Trump ranks last.
In the 2024 edition of the Presidential Greatness Project Expert Poll, Biden ranks 14th, just ahead of Woodrow Wilson and Ronald Reagan. Trump ranks 45th behind Andrew Johnson, who was also impeached, and James Buchanan, who spent years living in a basement on such ratings thanks to his antebellum leadership.
“Partisanship and ideology don't tend to make a big difference overall, but there are some differences that are worth noting,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston and Coastal author who first published how great they are. said Justin S. Vaughn of the University of Carolina. 2015 survey.
Experts surveyed who identify as conservatives ranked Biden 30th, while liberals ranked him 13th and moderates ranked him 20th. All three of these same groups ranked Trump in the bottom five during his presidency for his disregard for historical norms.
On a scale of 0 to 100 for the survey's “overall excellence,” a rating of 50 means the president is average, and 0 means the president is considered a failure. Only the top three presidents scored over 90 points: Abraham Lincoln in first place, Franklin Delano Roosevelt in second place, and George Washington. The decline from there was steep, with no other president scoring above 80 points. Roughly half of the presidents' ratings were below 50.
Trump's overall rating was 10.92, clearly the worst, while Biden was tied with John Adams at 62.66. Part of Biden's appeal may be due to his following in the Oval Office. According to the survey summary, Trump is seen as “the most polarizing president of all the presidents ranked by 170 respondents.”
The research comes as the two candidates for the 2024 presidential election face distinctly different headwinds. Historians may prefer Biden, but polls show he lacks confidence in his handling of key policy areas, and he is routinely criticized for his age. And despite facing 91 felonies and deep-seated disapproval of his one-term presidency, Trump is racing toward the new Republican nomination to lead the nation. .
In a sign of partisan divisions, the scholars write that “Republicans and conservatives rank George Washington as the greatest president,” while Democrats, moderates, and independents rank the founding president in second place. It is placed in third place.
“There are several presidents with clear partisan polarization, including Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Obama, and Biden, but interestingly, Bill Clinton is not,” the study authors wrote. Stated.
In fact, Clinton fared slightly better among right-wing respondents, ranking 10th, than among liberals and moderates (both of whom ranked him as the 12th best president). .
Of course, measuring presidential greatness is subjective and selective. Historians regularly reanalyze the successes and failures of leaders, but in today's polarized political climate, those qualities can look very different depending on who you ask. It can also be difficult to derive clear criteria for a president's greatness beyond being at the helm of the United States at important moments in history, such as contributing to the founding of the nation or maintaining national unity. be.
For example, Lincoln, the study's greatest leader, is praised for preserving unions and ending slavery. But Washington, which fell from second to third place in the new poll, was a practitioner of the abhorrent practice. Even Roosevelt, who is credited with enacting the New Deal to rebuild the country and guiding the United States through most of the world wars, was credited with ordering the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. has been criticized.
The purpose of this study is to give presidential historians and experts an opportunity to weigh in on where today's leaders stand in the broader context. To do so, Rottinghaus and Born sent a request to current and recent members of the American Political Science Association's President and Executive Politics Section.
