How have scholars’ evaluations of Trump changed since his presidency in recent presidential rankings (2023–2025)?

1. Scholarly surveys put Trump at the bottom — repeatedly

The Presidential Greatness Project’s survey of presidential scholars found Trump at or near the bottom in its 2024 results, with reporting that he “received the lowest rating” and was ranked last among modern presidents in that expert poll of roughly 154 respondents ^{[1] [2]}. Other expert instruments mirror that judgment: the Siena/ SCRI and related academic tallies report Trump entering some surveys as one of the bottom three presidents — grouped with historically reviled figures like Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan — and recent aggregate tallies show him scoring extremely poorly on composite scales ^{[4] [6]}.

2. Little movement toward rehabilitation between 2023 and 2025

Across the cited expert efforts covering the 2023–2025 window, Trump’s standing did not improve; instead, recent Democratic presidents gained in several surveys while recent Republicans — with Trump the notable exception who remained at the bottom — tended to slide downward in comparative rankings, a pattern survey authors attribute in part to scholars’ premium on respect for political and institutional norms ^{[3] [4]}. Commentary and academic summaries published into 2025 continued to treat Trump’s presidency as historically poorly rated, and analysts at institutions such as Durham University concluded that his term is “difficult to define as ‘great’” given scholars’ assessments of crisis management and lasting achievement ^{[7] [3]}.

3. Methodological caveats and the role of norms and partisanship

Researchers behind the Presidential Greatness and Siena-style surveys explicitly note that scholars weigh adherence to norms and institutional stability heavily — factors that hurt evaluations of Trump — and survey administrators acknowledge that partisan composition of respondents and question timing can shape results ^{[4] [3]}. Critics of presidential rankings more broadly, including Julian Zelizer, argue these lists are “weak mechanisms” that change slowly and can obscure nuance, a reminder that low rankings reflect a mix of measured judgments and methodological choices rather than a single objective metric ^[4].

4. Public opinion versus elite rankings: a contrast

While scholars place Trump at the bottom in expert rankings, public confidence polls show a more mixed picture of his standing on practical issues like the economy, where Americans historically have expressed comparative confidence in his abilities during campaign periods — a divergence underscoring that elite historiographical judgment and contemporary public approval are different currencies ^{[8] [9]}. Major polling trackers continued to show polarized approval ratings through 2024–2025, indicating that scholarly consensus on “greatness” does not translate directly into broader public rehabilitation ^{[10] [11]}.

5. The 2025 complication: return to office and postponed surveys

Scholarly ranking projects planned for 2025 confronted a new complication after Trump’s unconventional non‑consecutive return to the presidency — for example, C-SPAN postponed a 2025 survey on the grounds that ranking a living, re‑elected former president would move the exercise from historical analysis toward punditry — which means some comparative metrics will be interrupted or deferred, limiting the ability to track a clean, continuous trajectory for scholarly opinion across the 2023–2025 span ^{[4] [5]}.

Conclusion

In sum, the body of expert surveys between 2023 and 2025 shows a consistent elite verdict: Trump is rated at or near the bottom of presidential rankings compiled by historians and political scientists, with little evidence of rehabilitation in scholarly opinion and with methodological caveats — notably the emphasis on norms, partisan sorting among respondents, and disruptions from his return to office — that shape and sometimes constrain interpretation of those results ^{[1] [3] [4]}.