Coloradans will finish voting next week on whether to support using the popular vote to elect the president. It's a close call, but let's hope they do.
The ballot initiative follows Colorado's decision last year to join 14 states and Washington, D.C., as a member of what's called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact — pledging their Electoral College votes to the winner of the nationwide popular vote, but only once states with a combined 270 electoral votes (the majority guaranteeing election) have signed on. The current group commands 196 votes.
But shortly after Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed the law, opponents launched a "veto referendum" campaign and gathered 100,000 more signatures than the 125,000 required to put the measure on this fall's ballot. Voters will now have the chance to affirm or reverse the state's decision. Nearly $6 million has already been spent on the campaign, with three of every four dollars spent by people wanting to remain in the compact.
(By the way, 22 states provide an avenue for the citizenry to repeal a state law. Colorado last saw its version used in 1932.)
Coloradans have good reasons to vote "Yes," which means sticking with the popular vote compact. Doing so would support the principle of every one person having one vote, which the Electoral College tramples. And it would encourage turnout, which the Electoral College disincentivizes in the solid majority of states that year after year remain reliably Republican red or Democatic blue. (Voter participation was 11 percent less in the "safe" states, on average, than in the battlegrounds of 2012, for example.)
If the compact takes over how presidential elections are decided, effectively neutering the Electoral College as we now know it, that would end the practice of candidates making all their campaign appearances in the relative handful of competitive states. And it would bring an end to so-called misfire elections, when the Electoral College winner prevails despite losing the popular vote.
Voting "Yes," however, would eventually prove to be only a symbolic decision — because the compact itself is fatally compromised.
The critical flaw is not about using the popular vote. It is not the deal's total lack of bipartisan support at the moment, Colorado being the only remotely purple place on a list that's otherwise all deep blue. And it is not the pact's potential unconstitutionality, because courts may decide it needs congressional approval, which it does not have, or is an improper diversion around the Constitution.
These concerns are irrelevant, as are the problems from sticking with winner-take-all, plurality outcomes.
What matters is that, if ever implemented, the compact would crumble at first use.
This design instability starts with the compact going into effect once states representing 270 electors sign on. Participating states may not leave the compact in the six months before each national election, but they can do so afterwards. If even just one or two states decides to leave after the first election under the compact, the total number of electors from participating states would likely fall below the magic number, thus killing the compact.
Would states drop out this way? Assuredly. Just consider Maryland, the first state to join the compact in 2007. If the reliably Democratic electorate ever witnesses its 10 electoral votes awarded to a Republican winner of the national vote — irrespective of whether the election is close — do you think Maryland voters or their representatives would allow that to happen again?
Or consider 2004, when Democratic Sen. John Kerry would have cinched an Electoral College majority had he overcome only a 120,000-vote gap in Ohio. He would still have lost the national popular vote by 3 million. Had the compact been in effect, how do you think voters in Ohio, or in blue California and New York, would have reacted if their electoral votes went to the re-election of President George W. Bush?
Yes, some would support political equality and defend reliance on the national popular will. But would there be enough of them, and would they be loud and strong enough to prevail?
Such scenarios could play out in any blue or red state where residents might conclude their votes were subverted. Contributing to this flaw is the simple truth that, by preserving the Electoral College and its structure, the compact signals to voters that their states still matter — the opposite of what the NPVIC advocates.
If the compact ever gets close to membership by states with more than 270 electors, this implementation problem will get heightened scrutiny. No new states would sign on. Existing participants would drop out. In other words, the NPVIC is destined to die before it ever has a chance to live.
I would still vote "Yes" on Proposition 113 if I lived in Colorado. The compact's sustained civic education and engagement value is real and merits appreciation if not support.
Ultimately, however, a constitutional problem requires a constitutional solution. That means an amendment, the daunting path the NPVIC explicitly avoids. At some point, pursuing the compact became (or will become) a diversion from the only course leading to the desired destination.
A transition to a goal of eliminating rather than modifying the Electoral College is needed. That could be expedited by more misfire elections, or dramatically boosted by this nightmare occurring: No candidate secures 270 electoral votes and the election is thrown to the House, where each state's delegation would have one vote.
Amending the Constitution to change how we select the president remains unimaginable now. But political reality could be different in a decade — or in 2037, the Constitution's 250th anniversary. Truly celebrating that milestone will require removing the stain of the Electoral College.
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.