AND SURVEY SAYS ...

Lincoln the best president in history, Trump the worst

It’s been a tough week or so for Donald Trump.

Not only was he ordered to pay $355 million in a New York state civil fraud case, and be greeted with boos when he tried to sell sneakers at a Philadelphia convention, but a recent ranking of presidents by a panel of historians put him in dead last place.

The 2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey asked historians to rank the nation’s presidents from best to worst. More than 150 scholars participated.

And Donald Trump took the very bottom spot at no. 45, beneath such maligned presidents as Andrew Johnson (43) and central Pa.’s own James Buchanan (44).

Current President Joe Biden, however, fared considerably better than his predecessor, coming in at no. 14, sandwiched between John Adams at 13 and Woodrow Wilson at 15.

In fact, one of Biden’s biggest accomplishments, according to the historians behind the survey, is simply preventing Trump from getting reelected.

“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,” Justin Vaughn and Brandon Rottinghaus, who conducted the survey, said in an Op-Ed in the Los Angeles Times.

So who garnered the no. 1 spot? Abraham Lincoln, who also was voted tops in 2015 and 2018. The rest of the top five are then filled out by, in descending order, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George Washington, Teddy Roosevelt, and Thomas Jefferson.

Barack Obama is in the top 10 at no. 7 (rising nine places from last year), while Bill Clinton is at no. 12.

The survey asked respondents to rate each president on a scale of 0-100 for their overall greatness, with 0 equaling failure, 50 being average, and 100 being great. They then averaged the ratings for each president and ranked them from highest average to lowest.

The poll also ranked partisan and ideological differences among the people that responded, but the surveyors said it did not “tend to make a major difference overall.” They did note, however, that conservatives tended to regard George Washington as the greatest president and James Buchanan as the least great.

AP FILE PHOTO The statues of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln are shown at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. They consistently rank among the best presidents.

PHOTOS BY JIM WATSON AND BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP President Joe Biden ranked No. 14in the poll, while former President Trump ranked dead last at No. 45.

AP FILE PHOTO Abraham Lincoln is ranked No. 1.