Every state that relies heavily on voting by mail outperformed the national median during the 2022 primaries – but none of them led in turnout this year. That distinction went to Wyoming, where Rep. Liz Cheney ran in a statewide nominating contest, and Kansas, which put an abortion measure on the primary ballot.
But the seven states that do run vote-by-mail primaries were all in the top 20 – including four of the top seven – according to data collected by the National Vote at Home Institute.
“Voting by mailed-out ballots has lifted primary turnout in states by 5 to 15 percentage points,” said Gerry Langeler, director of research for NVAHI. “And given that primaries often show turnout percentages in the teens or 20s, that can amount to a 25 percent to 50 percent relative lift.”
While making it easier to vote appears to be a significant driver of higher turnout, there are individual contests that can motivate people to vote at an even higher rate.
Cheney, the sole House member from Wyoming, had been a reliable supporter of conservative causes who voted with her party and Donald Trump on nearly every issue. And she had been the third-ranking Republican in the House until being forced from the post because she defended the results of the 2020 election and blamed Trump for the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
She then agreed to serve as the top Republican on the committee investigating the insurrection, further cementing herself as an outcast in a party still heavily backing Trump. The three-term lawmaker easily won the nomination in 2018 and 2020 with about 75,000 votes each time. This year, she lost the primary to Harriet Hageman, who got more than 113,000 votes – as turnout soared to 63 percent in Wyoming, up from 52 percent in the 2018 midterm.
While the state does not have a full vote-by-mail system, it does allow anyone to use an absentee ballot and runs an open primary.
Legislators in Kansas had placed a proposed constitutional amendment banning the right to an abortion on the primary ballot, rather than November’s general election ballot. Opponents accused lawmakers of scheduling it that way to take advantage of low voter turnout. But abortion rights supporters were motivated to vote and decisively defeated the amendemnt.
In 2018, the previous midterm election, 27 percent of registered voters cast a ballot in the Kansas primary. This year, turnout hit 48 percent.
After Wyoming and Kansas, four of the next five highest turnout states all conduct vote-by-mail elections. Forty percent of registered voters Washington and Hawaii participated in those states' primaries this year.
They were followed by Oregon (38 percent) and Utah (37 percent), which unlike the others do not have open primaries. Sandwiched in between those pairs was Montana, which has an open primary and no-excuse absentee voting. Montana also allows people to request to permanently receive their ballots by mail.
According to NVAHI, turnout among mail voters in Montana was 55 percent, but only 12 percent among in-person voters.
Four other states and the nation’s capital conducted vote-by-mail primaries. (Vermont only uses a full vote-by-mail system for general elections.):
- California (33 percent).
- Colorado (32 percent).
- Washington, D.C. (32 percent).
- Alaska’s special election for its vacant House seat (28 percent). Turnout for the regular primary, which was not all run by mail, was 32 percent.
- Nevada (26 percent).
Even though Nevada trailed the others, it still surpassed the national median of 25 percent turnout.
“The turnout in Nevada displays the same thing we saw in Wyoming, but in reverse. Primary turnout still has a major component on ‘how hot are the local races’ in it. Wyoming led the nation in 2022 primary turnout due to the Liz Cheney ‘referendum,’ even without the benefit of mailed-out ballots,” Langeler said. “Nevada voters simply were not that engaged in their primary, but even as the lowest of the vote-at-home states, Nevada beat the national turnout average.”
Efforts are underway by advocates to further expand voting by mail. The D.C. City Council is considering a bill this week to make permanent its temporary move to vote by mail.
Langeler identified a number of states that may expand the use of permanent absentee voting (also known as “single sign-up”). Michigan has a ballot measure to that effect on the November ballot. New Mexico and Maine may revise their systems. And in Connecticut, lawmakers are expected to vote on switching to no-excuse absentee voting.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
____
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.