The Biden campaign took a swing at former President Donald Trump for finishing last in the recent Presidential Greatness Project survey, blasting the Republican presidential front-runner for being "the absolute worst in your profession."
Respondents to the survey, sponsored by the University of Houston and Coastal Carolina University, ranked Trump 45th out of the 45 U.S. presidents, behind only James Buchanan, whose legacy is one of contributing to the onset of the Civil War. Biden placed 14th in the survey.
The Biden campaign, trailing Trump nationally by 1.1 points in the RealClearPolitics polling average, pounced on what it saw as good news.
"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 in a statement.
Biden finishes two spots ahead of Ronald Reagan but seven spots behind his predecessor and former boss, Barack Obama.
"Scholars often emphasize stability of norms in assessing presidential greatness, so Joe Biden, serving after a tumultuous Trump administration, entered the survey on a high note," Houston's Brandon Rottinghaus wrote in the analysis.
Despite trailing Trump in the polls in six of the seven battleground states, including by 7.5 points in North Carolina, according to RCR, Munoz thinks the survey is a path to a win in November.
"President Biden wakes up every day fighting for the American people, helping to create more jobs in three years than any president has created in four, and investing in America at record levels," he said. "The choice in this election is clear: a president who has consistently delivered for the American people or Donald Trump who experts agree might be the worst to ever do it."
The top three presidents, according to the survey of 154 experts who are or were members of the American Political Science Association, Abraham Lincoln is No. 1 followed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and George Washington.
George Herbert Walker Bush comes in at 19 while George W. Bush is ranked No. 32.
The survey was conducted online from Nov. 15-Dec. 31.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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