Trump worst of all, according to expert survey on presidential greatness

A new survey of political scientists and presidential scholars has rated former President Donald Trump as the worst U.S. president in the nation’s history. His one term in office was notable for his two impeachments, historically large net job losses, and broken promises; his post-presidency has seen him indicted on 91 criminal counts.

The 2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey, conducted in November and December 2023 by political science professors Brandon Rottinghaus and Justin Vaughn, surveyed 154 members of the American Political Science Association and scholars who had recently published peer-reviewed research on presidential politics. Presidents Abraham Lincoln (93.87 rating out of 100), Franklin Delano Roosevelt (90.83), George Washington (90.32), Theodore Roosevelt (78.58), and Thomas Jefferson (77.53) received the top five ratings for overall greatness. President Joe Biden (62.66) ranked 14th. Trump (10.92) ranked 45th out of 45.

Among respondents who identified themselves as “conservative” or “somewhat conservative,” Trump ranked 43rd, with a rating of 26.76. Among Republicans, he ranked 41st.

Participants did not provide a rationale for their ratings, and the published survey results did not define “greatness.”

Trump’s single term in office was marked by scandals, broken promises, lies, and an economic and public health catastrophe. 

In 2016, Trump  claimed would “Make America Great Again,” but in office he broke many of the promises he had made during his campaign for president.

Trump repeatedly promised to build a massive border wall along the entire southern border between the United States and Mexico and to force Mexico to bankroll the entire project. After Mexico refused to fund the effort, Trump diverted billions of taxpayer dollars approved by Congress for military families and defense construction for the project. Still, he was only able to complete about five miles of new wall, while upgrading some existing fencing.  

He said he would significantly increase the nation’s GDP, claiming during a debate with Hillary Clinton in October 2016: “I’m going to create tremendous jobs. And we’re bringing GDP from, really, 1 percent, which is what it is now, and if she got in, it will be less than zero. But we’re bringing it from 1 percent up to 4 percent. And I actually think we can go higher than 4 percent. I think you can go to 5 percent or 6 percent.” Trump also promised to balance the budget and eliminate the entire national debt “fairly quickly.” 

Instead, his policies added trillions of dollars to the national debt even before he signed massive coronavirus pandemic-related spending bills in 2020. Job growth never reached 4% until the third quarter of 2020, when the reopening economy partially rebounded after a 31% contraction the previous quarter due to COVID-19 closures. A January 2021 Washington Post analysis noted that Trump left office with the worst jobs record of any president in modern history, with a net loss of 3 million jobs. 

Trump repeatedly promised to repeal the Affordable Care Act, vaguely saying he would replace it with something “terrific” that would provide health insurance coverage to every American. He never revealed any plan and failed to reform health insurance. His botched handling of the coronavirus pandemic caused an estimated 57,800 more deaths than necessary, according to an analysis by researchers at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom published in October 2020.

He said he would “drain the swamp in Washington, D.C.” with a five-point ethical reform plan, but did not do so. In addition to multiple ethical scandals, Trump was impeached and acquitted twice: in 2019 on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress related to efforts to pressure Ukraine into announcing an investigation into the Biden family; and in 2021 on charges of inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. 

According to a Washington Post analysis published in January 2021, Trump made more than 30,000 false or misleading claims during his term in office.

Since leaving the White House, Trump has been found civilly liable for sexual assault and deemed by a federal judge to have raped author E. Jean Carroll in 1996 and indicted on 91 federal and state criminal counts relating to his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, his role in the Capitol insurrection, his handling of classified documents, and his hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. He is the first American president to have been indicted while in office or afterwards. Trump has denied all wrongdoing.