Joe Biden is outpolling Donald Trump in at least one survey — of U.S. academics.
Timed as always to Presidents Day weekend, the 2024 edition of the quadrennial Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey put Mr. Biden among the top third of U.S. presidents at No. 14 (ahead of Ronald Reagan and tied with John Adams, e.g.).
Mr. Trump placed last at No. 45.
Part of Mr. Biden’s virtue, the historians say, is exactly that he’s not Mr. Trump and is saving the country from the threat he poses.
“Biden’s most important achievements may be that he rescued the presidency from Trump, resumed a more traditional style of presidential leadership and is gearing up to keep the office out of his predecessor’s hands this fall,” wrote Justin Vaughn and Brandon Rottinghaus, the professors who did the survey and announced the results in The Los Angeles Times.
The Biden campaign crowed, sending out a statement with the subject line, “Happy Presidents’ Day! … Unless You’re Donald Trump.”
“It takes a lot to be known as the absolute worst in your profession in the history of your country. But Donald Trump managed to do it, and it’s pretty clear why. Donald Trump spent his four years in office working for one thing only: himself,” Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz said.
The top three presidents were Abraham Lincoln at No. 1, followed by Franklin D. Roosevelt at No. 2 and then George Washington at No. 3.
Two of the men ahead of Mr. Trump — James Buchanan and William Henry Harrison — had conventionally been called America’s worst presidents for decades.
Buchanan was president as the nation itself fell apart in the late-1850s over the issue of slavery. Harrison died of pneumonia only 31 days after delivering a two-hour inaugural dress without a coat or hat in a cold, wet day in a pre-antibiotics era (1841).
The survey included 154 historians and political scientists affiliated with the American Political Science Association and with a focus on the U.S. presidency.
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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