During their debate, Joe Biden and Donald Trump exchanged charges that the other was the "worst president in history." The former cited evidence of a recent online poll; the latter referenced comparisons of performance on key issues.
Whereas an article I posted last Friday based heavily upon very recent Times/Sienna College polling results didn't make any claims regarding historic presidential rankings, it did compare relative performance survey approvals and disapprovals of the two candidates with regard to key priorities deemed most important by likely voters in its rather large 1,200-respondent sample where Trump led in all top categories.
These results piqued my interest to investigate the plausibility of Biden's debate reference to an unnamed online poll that indicated an extremely incompatible finding: that Trump had been ranked by 154 experts as the worst U.S. president ever.
So I checked, and I will consequentially share some rather basic poll legitimacy considerations and cautions.
For starters, the "2024 Presidential Greatness Project Expert Survey" President Biden referred to was conducted online by the political science section of the American Political Science Association (APSA) via Qualtrics from Nov. 15 to Dec. 31, 2023, (about eight months ago), while the more current New York Times/Siena College (NYT/SC) survey was conducted between June 20-25 of this year.
The survey sample pools and sizes were very different, with APSA representing 154 "usable responses" out of 525 who were invited to participate (a 29.3% response rate), drawing from current and recent members along with other scholars who "had recently published peer-reviewed academic research in key related scholarly journals or academic presses."
Based on an interview with one of the two lead researchers, Professor Justin Vaughn of Coastal Carolina University, about 90% of those academic respondents were liberal (meaning only about 15 of the total survey number leaned conservative/Republican).
And, yes, the APSA survey indeed ranked Trump last of the 54 listed in the entire U.S. presidential history, with Biden among the best third at 14, and Barack Obama at 7th place.
No correlative presidential performance achievement nor historical knowledge criterion was noted for these ranking assessments.
One of the survey questions asked which president each responder would pick as an addition to Mount Rushmore, Obama came second at 11% after Franklin Delano Roosevelt (65%).
By comparison, the NYT/SC polling pool conducted among 1,226 registered voters was about 8 times larger, with the survey group split 29% Republican, 28% Democrat, and 34% independent, whereby 44% of those who voted in 2020 had picked Trump, with 49% going for Biden.
That means that about half (approximately 610 respondents), previously voted for each candidate.
Unlike the APSA survey, the NYT/SC poll tabulated candidate percentile ratings on numerous high-priority policy issues collectively deemed most important on granularly specific performance levels where Trump led Biden 51% to 37% on top concerns.
When asked to pick the most important issue influencing their votes: 22% listed the economy with 6% inflation and the cost of living; 16% immigration; 8% abortion; 6% general foreign policy; 6% candidate character/competence; 5% democracy/corruption; 4% candidate dislike; 2% Mideast/Israel/Palestine; and 1% climate change.
Strongly favoring Trump, immigration was cited as a matter of increasing importance to voters of both parties, even topping the economy with Hispanic voters, whereas abortion ranked as the most important issue favoring Biden.
Given that the American Political Science Association describes itself as nonpartisan, and "the foremost organization of social science experts," is it also the most rigorously objective?
Perhaps not quite so much.
While admittedly anecdotal, I happened upon a 2017 article titled "Why I'm Leaving the Political Science Association" and written by Professor Bruce Gilley, who then served as president of the Oregon affiliate of the National Association of Scholars and who thinks otherwise.
Briefly summarized, Gilley, who identified himself as ideologically independent, characterized his predominately liberal APSA colleagues as "reasonable and rational people who are aware of the importance of bringing a variety of political viewpoints into the classroom."
Nevertheless, "they view the academy as a special zone of (left-wing) Truth that must be protected against (right-wing) Falsehoods of the real world."
Gilley notes that the ratio of Democratic/left-of-center to Republican/right-of-center political science professors is variously estimated at around 15-to-1 nationwide, not counting moderates and centrist independents.
That skewed ratio, he adds, is infinitely large in his home state of Oregon, where he didn't know a single Republican or conservative member of his profession.
"Today," Gilley then observed, "APSA has become barely distinguishable from the Democratic Party and its far-left wing."
I was, frankly, more surprised to find the APSA Presidential Greatness Project article highlighted in the traditionally apolitical University of Houston newsletter under an Associated Press banner, "Fact Focus: Here's a Look at Some of the False Claims Made During Biden and Trump's First Debate," prior to noticing that the survey's other co-author, Professor Brandon Rottinghaus, is a fellow UH faculty member, however in a different college than mine.
Not wishing to disparage the professional integrity either of Professors Rottinghaus or Vaughn, and upon viewing videos of both, although they appear to be nice guys to share interesting conversations and beers with, I hardly believe their small and biased survey pool, lack of correlative performance assessment criteria, and suspiciously intentional sensationalist conclusions reflect priorities and opinions of the most important polls of all.
I'm referring to those that take place in voting booths and that ultimately determine who leads our country.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 12 books is "Architectures Beyond Boxes and Boundaries: My Life By Design" (2022). Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.
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