A day ahead of the New Hampshire primary, college kids are in the center of both the main voting rights fight and concern about confusion at the polls.
The issue is what students from out of state must do in order to vote legally in the first straightforward election of the 2020 Democratic presidential contest. The rules were changed by state law two years ago, with some Republican legislators saying their aim was to make it tougher for young people who grew up outside the Granite State to take part.
But civil rights groups, led by the American Civil Liberties Union, are encouraging every American citizen who's at least 18 years old and wakes up in New Hampshire on Tuesday to head to the polls — potentially causing anger and delays if election judges seek to turn them away.
Some demographic studies project that people younger than 35 will make up the biggest voting bloc by age this year, surpassing people older than 65. Democrats have moved aggressively to corral the youth vote nationally, and Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont rounded up an outsized share as part of his strong showing in Iowa.
Now he and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts are counting most on strong turnouts by college students to boost their fortunes in New Hampshire. Reports that those voters are being blocked could cause a second wave of furor aimed at the presidential nominating process less than a week after the collapse of the results tabulation process in Iowa.
Students count for as much as 10 percent of the state's eligible voters but a majority come from out of state — and not only at private colleges like Dartmouth, St. Anselm and Franklin Pierce. Half the students at the University of New Hampshire went to high school in another state.
The lack of certainty about their voting rights has been fed by the unresolved status of the ACLU's lawsuits challenging the 2018 law.
The new statute appears at first glance to change the rules for establishing residency in the state, a prerequisite to voting. One suit, on which the state Supreme Court will hear arguments a month from now, asks whether the law explicitly requires people who vote to first obtain a New Hampshire driver's license and vehicle registration — an expensive and inconvenient process that few college students are readily inclined to pursue.
If the court says they must get the documentation in order to exercise their franchise, then the ACLU will press its claim in federal court that the new law amounts to an unconstitutional poll tax.
A four-page document of "frequently asked questions about establishing a domicile / residence in New Hampshire" has been sent to all 301 polling places by the state's attorney general, secretary of state and motor vehicle department head. But it appears to offer some confusing if not contradictory guidance.
The ACLU is telling students who grew up outside New Hampshire to claim they have the right to both register and vote Tuesday by pairing their out-of-state driver licenses with their student IDs and piece of mail addressed to their campus addresses.
Henry Klementowicz of the ACLU says that advice is based on other statutes suggesting that people who consider New Hampshire their home may vote without a state driver's license or vehicle registration. Besides, he said, the very act of registering to vote is one of the requirements under state law for establishing residence.
Also, he and other critics of the law note, voters cannot be compelled to get a New Hampshire license if they don't drive in the state, and they cannot re-register a car they're driving if it's owned by someone (their parents, for example) who doesn't live in the state.
The law was written by a Republican Legislature and signed by GOP Gov. Chris Sununu. The Republicans said they were less worried about the presidential primary (which is open to all, regardless of party) than about a surge of liberal-leaning students from other states tipping the balance of power in New Hampshire. And, in fact, in the 2018 midterm (when the new residency law was not applied) the Legislature flipped to Democratic control.
Democrat Bill Gardner, the longest-serving secretary of state in the country, said the law is defensible because it ends New Hampshire's status as the "only state in the country where you do not have to be a resident to vote."
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.