Rob Richie is president and CEO of FairVote.
This month was a big one for Alaska and its new election system, as the state used ranked-choice voting on Aug. 16 for the first time since a 2020 referendum revamped its elections. In Alaska’s first RCV election, to fill a U.S. House vacancy, Democrat Mary Peltola led the field in first choices, with Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich splitting the remaining 60 percent of votes cast.
RCV is now improving elections in 55 cities, states and counties. Instead of picking just one candidate, you get to rank as many candidates as you want in order of your choice: first, second, third and so on. If your first-choice candidate is in last place, your vote counts for your highest-ranked candidate who can win. RCV makes races with more than two candidates better for voters and candidates alike, by removing the fear that like-minded candidates will “split the vote.”
Alaska and Maine now use RCV for all presidential and congressional elections. But the Last Frontier’s experience has unique elements. It's the first state to merge the nonpartisan primary used in a pair of West Coast states with RCV – that is, four candidates advance from the primary (rather than only two, as in Washington and California), and voters then use RCV to elect the candidate with the greatest support.
That means voters will almost always have a competitive general election – and can have more than one candidate of the same party, as will happen in every statewide race in Alaska this November. Sen. Lisa Murkowski advanced in her reelection race, but so did her fellow Republicans Kelly Tshibaka and Buzz Kelley.
Alaska also offers logistical challenges. It has an unusually high number of active-duty military voters and rural citizens living in largely inaccessible communities. Because so many absentee ballots take a while to reach election offices, officials allow 15 days for them to arrive in any general election. This month, they’ve decided not to not run the RCV tally to determine the U.S. House winner until Aug. 31.
While Alaska’s size will remain unique and FairVote’s new co-authored report encourages cities and states to run initial RCV tallies on election night or as quickly as possible, Alaska’s move to RCV is indicative of a national movement. We’ve studied and advocated for RCV for 30 years, and it’s never had as much momentum as it does now.
While waiting on Alaska’s results, it’s a great time to learn more about how the nation’s fastest-growing nonpartisan voting reform could be coming to your community soon.
Ten November ballot measures
Voters in Nevada and at least nine cities and counties will vote on whether to use or expand RCV for their elections. That’s the most RCV measures ever in one year. There are great reasons that states and cities want to adopt RCV – with nearly all these efforts put on the ballot by a city council or charter commission that decided RCV was best for their community.
- Nevada’s proposed constitutional amendment would combine RCV with primary reform, in a system similar to Alaska’s.
- In Fort Collins, Colo., RCV could improve a current voting system where candidates with unrepresentative views were elected due to the majority splitting the vote.
- Several measures will eliminate low-turnout, wasteful nonpartisan primaries. That includes Oregon’s largest county of Multnomah, neighboring Clark County, Wash., and Evanston, Ill. The mayor of Evanston explained how RCV could offer a faster, cheaper way to find a majority winner.
- The transformative measure proposed in Portland, Ore., includes the proportional form of RCV to elect a larger, more representative council – with Portland, Maine, voting whether to allow proportional RCV as well.
RCV as a norm would change incentives for candidates – encouraging them to seek areas of agreement because they’ll want to be voters’ second or third choices if not their first.
RCV elections in November
This fall, Alaska will hold its regularly scheduled RCV races for governor, senator, the House, and the Legislature. Unlike the special election, which only includes three candidates after a late withdrawal, these races typically will have four candidates and a write-in.
RCV will also be used in one of the nation’s few tossup congressional districts. Maine’s 2nd offers a rematch of a 2018 race among Democratic incumbent Jared Golden, former Republican Rep. Bruce Poliquin and independent Tiffany Bond. In 2018, Golden won by earning the lion’s share of second-choice support from independent voters; the race may come down to whether Poliquin can change his 2018 approach.
We’ll also see RCV in 11 counties and cities, including three first-time uses in California.
RCV is improving elections across the map. Policymakers and reformers can learn more about RCV at FairVote and how to connect with community reformers at FairVote Action. Alaska is far from alone in the movement for better elections for all.
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.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.