Dem
52
Ties
1
GOP
47
After much pleading, Donald Trump is doing something Democrats want. He is trying to make the midterms about himself. Democrats couldn't be more pleased.
Trump is thinking about his legacy, not about holding the House and Senate, much to the dismay of congressional Republicans. To help burnish his legacy, he just sent out this AI-generated bleat:
There are a couple of problems here. We seem to be having some problems locating the beloved John F. Kennedy here, and also the less-beloved Lyndon B. Johnson. And what about Ike? Wasn't he the guy who was president back in the 1950s, the era MAGA wants to return to? Doesn't he rate even being on the chart? Not to mention St. Ronnie of Reagan?
We don't entirely get why Woodrow Wilson is among the greats. Maybe because he was a racist and white supremacist? The list of failures at the bottom has a surprise, though. Why is Warren Harding in the bottom row? His administration was so corrupt that 100 years later the only thing anyone remembers about it is the Teapot Dome scandal. What's not to like here?
There have been many ratings contests conducted by historians, political scientists, pollsters, and others. Here are 25 rankings since 1948. In the most recent one, from the American Political Science Association, Trump beat out Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan for the bottom spot. He was dead last. We were half-tempted to rotate the above image by 180°, but we managed to resist. In the 2024 APSA ranking (the most recent), The top three are Lincoln, F. Roosevelt, and George Washington. In nearly all rankings, these are the top three, but the order varies.
Trump has never been #1 in any ranking. However, in a 2018 Siena College Research Institute ranking, he did manage to beat out Buchanan and Andrew Johnson and was only third-worst president.
Now that we've had time for a little snark, we'll say that the image Trump sent out clearly comes from the 1948 Life magazine article reporting on the first major scholarly poll of presidents. Some Trumper used AI to add Trump at the top, put Joe Biden, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama at the bottom, and then they called it a day. That Trumper, along with Trump himself, are counting on two things: (1) that people won't question the absurdity of Trump as the greatest ever and (2) that people won't notice that the presidents from 1948-2026, other than Trump and the three "failure" Democrats are missing. It's a way to put Trump front and center, and to try to create an impression he's a wild success.
A new report from The Atlantic says that Trump will spend some of the $400 million from one of his piggy banks to buy ads touting how great he is, rather than helping the beleagured Ken Paxton or Jon Husted.
Republican candidates DO NOT WANT to have Trump's face all over the media since this will allow Democrats to tie them to an unpopular president. They would prefer he just stay inside the White House until Nov. 3 and watch Fox News and not do anything visible outside the building. His overall approval is in the mid-30s, but on combating inflation, the most recent poll has him at 22% approve and 72% disapprove. Democrats are hammering him on this. His approval on the war in Iran is only marginally better, at 29/64.
Maybe Trump thinks he can improve his numbers by running ads praising the tax cut he gave to billionaires, but we suspect not. Also, it is not clear whether a Trump-centric midterm will turn out more Democrats or more Republicans. But Trump doesn't seem to care. He is definitely fighting against Democrats, just not James Talarico and Troy Jackson. His enemies are Andrew Johnson and James Buchanan and the goal is to get out of last place. But a big campaign that makes the midterms all about himself might actually have the reverse result. However, it will make Democratic candidates very happy. (V)