More cities than ever before will use ranked-choice voting in their elections next Tuesday, furthering the alternative voting system's momentum across the country.
In Utah alone, 19 cities will use ranked ballots — most for the first time — after opting into an RCV pilot program earlier this year. This brings the nationwide total to 50 jurisdictions using RCV, with more than two dozen using it in elections this year. Outside of Utah, three of those cities are also newcomers to RCV.
Ranked-choice voting saw its biggest debut yet earlier this year in New York City's primaries for mayor and city council, which drew national attention.
In an RCV election, voters rank candidates in order of preference. In the event that no candidate receives majority support, an instant runoff will occur, as the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and that person's support is redistributed to voters' second choices. That process continues until one candidate crosses the 50 percent threshold.
Proponents of RCV say it reduces the cost of election administration and improves the voter experience by eliminating the need for costly runoff elections. Supporters also argue RCV bolsters the campaigns of women and people of color. While critics say the system is confusing and doesn't necessarily lead to better representation, polling in New York found the transition to be easy on voters, and a majority of the city council seats are likely to be won by women for the first time. The city council is expected to see other firsts emerge from the election, including its first-ever openly gay Black woman and first person of South Asian descent.
Utah by far has the most jurisdictions that have switched over to RCV. In addition to the state capital, Salt Lake City, 22 other cities opted into ranked elections this year. In four jurisdictions, though, there weren't at least three candidates on the ballot to rank, so those places will use traditional plurality voting.
"Good governance starts locally, which is why we're thrilled so many Utah cities have embraced ranked-choice voting," said Stan Lockhart, an advocate with Utah Ranked Choice Voting and former chairman of the Utah Republican Party. "This will be an opportunity for Utahns to test out ranked-choice voting ballots for themselves, and we're confident that Utahns will appreciate being offered back-up choices in the ballot box."
Minnesota is another state with several cities using RCV in its elections next week. Minneapolis, which adopted RCV in 2006, was one of the first jurisdictions in the country to make the switch to the alternative voting system. The state capital has a highly contested mayoral race with 17 candidates on the ballot, including incumbent Jacob Frey. Additionally, the cities of Bloomington and Minnetonka will be using ranked ballots for the first time.
Santa Fe, N.M., also has competitive RCV elections for mayor and city council on Nov. 2. The state capital first used ranked ballots in its 2018 elections.
RCV itself will be on the ballot in three cities next week. Voters in Ann Arbor, Mich., Broomfield, Colo., and Westbrook, Maine, will consider ballot measures to adopt RCV for future contests.
Last month, the Philadelphia City Council passed a resolution to study using RCV for municipal elections. The council is holding public hearings to discuss the switch.
And while the Virginia governor's race won't be utilizing ranked ballots, the state Republican Party used a form of ranked-choice votingin its nominating contest in May.
"Ranked choice voting is the fastest-growing, most bipartisan voting reform in the country. We're thrilled that more than 30 cities will use RCV next week and that the year's most high-profile elections in Virginia and New York City featured primaries with RCV," said Rob Richie, president of FairVote, an RCV advocacy organization. "Whether it's in progressive New York City or conservative Utah, voters overwhelmingly report positive experiences with RCV. Looking forward, I can't wait for Alaska and Maine to use RCV next year, and for advocacy drives to bring RCV to more cities, use RCV to handle crowded fields in presidential primaries and forever end gerrymandering by using RCV in tandem with multi-member districts."
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.