U.S. President Joe Biden precisely claimed within the June 27, 2024, presidential debate with Donald Trump that “158 or 159 presidential historians” had voted Trump the worst president in U.S. historical past.
The precise variety of survey individuals was 154, and the group included historians and different social science specialists in presidential politics, however they did vote Trump the worst president in U.S. historical past. Biden was voted 14th biggest, between John Adams and Woodrow Wilson. Barack Obama was seventh and Ronald Reagan was sixteenth, whereas Abraham Lincoln snagged the highest spot.
Throughout the June 27, 2024, presidential debate on CNN, present U.S. President Joe Biden alleged that former President Donald Trump, his opponent within the debate, had been voted worst president in U.S. historical past:
Biden’s precise quote, from the transcript, learn as follows:
I wasn’t joking. Look it up. Go browsing. 159 or 58, do not maintain me the precise quantity, presidential historians. They’ve had conferences they usually voted who’s the worst president in American historical past. One by finest to worst. They mentioned he was the worst in all of American historical past. That is a truth. That is not conjecture. He can argue the flawed, however that is what they voted.
The declare had additionally beforehand appeared on X, and was picked up by a number of publications, together with Axios, The Guardian and the Los Angeles Times.
Biden’s declare is true, although the numbers, as he instructed, have been inexact. The survey from the Presidential Greatness Project went out to 525 “social science specialists in presidential politics, in addition to students who had not too long ago revealed peer-reviewed tutorial analysis in key associated scholarly journals or tutorial presses” between Nov. 15 and Dec. 31, 2023. The survey yielded 154 responses, which decided Trump was the worst president in U.S. historical past — even accounting for the individuals’ political beliefs.
The individuals graded every president on a scale of 0 to 100 with 0 being failure and 100 being nice. The scores have been then averaged and ranked from highest to lowest. Maybe unsurprisingly, Abraham Lincoln, who proclaimed the abolition of slavery, got here in first. Franklin D. Roosevelt was second and George Washington third. With a rating of of 62.66, Biden arrived 14th. Trump ranked forty sixth — the final spot — with a rating of 10.92:
(Presidential Greatness Project)
However there have been giant variations relying on the partisanship of those that responded to the survey. For instance, Trump scored a mean 6.97 factors out of 100 with liberals, whereas conservatives gave him extra factors with 26.76 (nonetheless far beneath the typical of fifty). Moderates, in the meantime, gave him 14.21 factors out of 100.
Trump did arrive first in one of many rankings of the survey: He was by far essentially the most oft-cited in reply to the query, “Who’s essentially the most polarizing president?”
The students additionally voted on essentially the most underrated president (Jimmy Carter) and most overrated (John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan narrowly shared that podium).
The survey began in 2015 because the initiative of Brandon Rottinghaus, of the College of Houston, and Justin Vaughn, of Coastal Carolina College. The 2024 ballot was its third iteration.
