Editor's note: This article has been updated with additional comments from FairVote's Rob Richie.
For the second cycle in a row, Minnesota has outperformed all other states when it comes to competition, voter participation and voter representation in U.S. House elections, according to the election reform advocacy group FairVote.
While Minnesota claimed the top spot in the “Dubious Democracy” rankings, nine other states also received an A, including three more in the Midwest: Wisconsin (second highest score), Michigan (tied for 5th) and Iowa (tied for 7th). Ten states earned an F, with Hawaii scoring the lowest.
Voters in states with higher grades are more likely to influence the outcome of an election, but the overall data demonstrates a lack of competition for congressional seats, according to FairVote.
“For three decades now, we’ve shown that elections for the ‘people’s house’ are deeply flawed. In our dubious democracy, more voters than ever are trapped in one-party districts where their voices aren’t heard and their votes don’t make a difference,” said Rob Richie, the group’s resident and CEO. “Whether it’s gerrymandering or simply a state’s strong tilt towards one party, the lack of competition in general elections discourages voters and hurts American democracy.”
FairVote, which has been conducting the study since 1994, found that only one-third of congressional races were decided by 10 points or less in 2020 while the average margin of victory in contested elections was 28 points.
The report also points out that while, nationally, Democrats’ share of the House vote matches their slim majority, the same doesn’t hold true in many states:
“States with three or more Representatives had a median partisan skew of 17%. States with large partisan skews include Utah, where Republicans earned 100% of seats but only 61% of votes, and New Jersey, where Democrats earned 83% of seats with only 57% of votes,” the report states.
States were measured in five categories: average margin of victory, percentage of races won by at least 20 points or uncontested (dubbed a “landslide”), the rate of voter participation, the percentage of voters who supported the victorious candidates (“voter consensus), and difference between share of seats and share of votes (“partisan skew”).
According to Richie, the nature of U.S. election systems prevents any one state from dominating across all categories, regardless of party control.
"Within the confines of winner-take-all voting rules, it's impossible for any one state to perform well on all the virtues of what we would want in a truly healthy representative democracy," he said. "But those assuming that Democrats will lead on policies designed to lift up voters should keep New York’s low ranking in mind. Despite recent progress, it remains far behind most states in creating voter access, embracing voter choice and valuing fair representation. That all contributes to its 44th-place ranking."
While Minnesota did not lead in any of the individual categories, it was among the top 10 in four of them, including winning the second spot for voter turnout.
Compared to other states, Minnesota has higher voter turnout grounded in years of best practices. It also tends to have relatively competitive House races and relatively balanced representation of the major parties," said Richie. "As a result, more Minnesotans' votes make a difference, but it's all relative — nearly 40 percent of Minnesota's House races are landslides or uncontested, and the average margin of victory in House races is 19 percent. That's hardly the competition we should have for every seat in the 'people's House.'"
Hawaii, meanwhile was among the worst for turnout. Its best performance was in the margin of victory category, coming in 38th.
"Hawaii encapsulates many of the problems with our winner-take-all system. Because of its political geography, its House races aren't competitive; also, its state legislature is nearly completely represented by one party," Richie explained. "Too many voters feel like their vote doesn't matter, and they don't turn out. That's a big part of why Hawaii ranks number 49 in voter turnout and in the bottom half of all of the 'Dubious Democracy' measures."
FairVote believes the solutions it advocates would give more voters a voice in more states.
“To provide real choices and improve representation for all of us, we need to pass the Fair Representation Act and move to multi-member congressional districts with fair elections based on ranked choice voting,” Richie said.
The Fair Representation Act would require that congressional districts be created by independent commissions, rather than legislators, and that members of Congress be elected proportionally so the views of more voters are represented.
To achieve proportional representation, elections would use ranked-choice voting, in which voters can rank multiple candidates. Through an instant runoff, candidates with the least support are eliminated and ballots supporting removed candidates are redistributed to voters’ next choice, until those with the most support are elected.
RCV advocates believe the system will create better representation and lead to more civil campaigns because candidates will need to appeal to more voters in order to get those second and third spots on the ballots.
The Fair Representation Act was introduced in June 2021 by Democratic Rep. Don Beyer. All seven of his cosponsors are also Democrats.
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.