Which recent academic presidential rankings include Donald Trump and what positions did he receive?

1. Presidential Greatness Project : rock bottom, numerical score and rank

The Presidential Greatness Project’s 2024 expert survey of 154 scholars — current and recent members of the Presidents and Executive Politics section of the American Political Science Association and related presidential politics experts — ranked Abraham Lincoln first and Donald Trump last, with Trump receiving an average score roughly 10.9 out of 100 and placed 45th in the list of presidents evaluated ^{[1] [2] [4]}. News outlets including Newsweek, The Guardian and Axios reported Trump as “last” in that survey and highlighted both the numerical low score (about 10.9–10.92) and the composition of the respondent pool as political science scholars focused on the presidency ^{[5] [6] [2]}.

2. Variations and apparent numbering inconsistencies across outlets

Reporting shows small inconsistencies in ordinal numbering — for example some pieces refer to Trump as the 45th-ranked president while other summaries and op-eds have cited him as “44th” in particular contexts — but the substantive factual claim is consistent across sources: in the 2024 expert survey he was placed at the very bottom of the surveyed list and scored roughly 11 points on a 0–100 scale ^{[7] [4] [1]}. These numbering differences largely reflect whether the count treats Grover Cleveland’s two nonconsecutive terms as separate entries or reflects variation in how outlets phrase the result, not a disagreement over Trump’s relative placement among surveyed presidents ^{[8] [1]}.

3. Other academic-style polls and scholar surveys: consistent bottom-tier placement

Other scholar-focused rankings and polls referenced in the coverage similarly place Trump in the bottom tier when political scientists and presidential scholars are the respondents: a Siena College-type poll and related presidential scholar tallies have put Trump among the lowest-ranked presidents alongside James Buchanan and Andrew Johnson in previous expert surveys, and Republican-identifying scholars in some polls placed Trump higher than the overall average but still roughly in the low 40s (e.g., 41st among Republican respondents) ^{[8] [3]}. Media summaries (Fox, The Hill, Axios, Newsweek) all reflected that pattern: extremely low average scores from the mixed pool of presidential experts and somewhat higher, but still weak, placement among self-identified Republican respondents ^{[9] [4] [2] [5]}.

4. Why scholars’ rankings put Trump low and what the polls measure

The surveys cited measure “presidential greatness” on a 0–100 scoring scale and rely on academic expertise rather than popular opinion, which explains the divergence between scholar rankings and public approval polls; the Presidential Greatness Project explicitly surveyed scholars whose work “engages presidential politics,” producing an average score under 11 for Trump in 2024 ^{[2] [10]}. Reporting notes methodological caveats — partisan leanings among academics, different respondent pools (historians vs. political scientists), and timing during or after contentious post-presidential events — that shape outcomes and explain why conservative-leaning respondents rank Trump noticeably higher than the overall scholar average ^{[5] [3] [7]}.

5. Limits of the available reporting and open questions

The available sources consistently document Trump’s bottom placement in the 2024 presidential-expert surveys and show similar results in related scholar tallies, but they do not provide a single comprehensive compendium of every academic ranking released in the same period; therefore, claims are limited to the major expert surveys and media reports included here, notably the Presidential Greatness Project and related scholar polls, which place Trump at or very near last with an average score near 10.9/100 and situate Republican-identifying scholars’ ratings somewhat higher but still low ^{[1] [2] [3]}.