Even though many of the “election deniers” who sought influential positions in state government this year were defeated, the threat to democracy has not subsided, according to the latest report from a trio of organizations seeking to protect the system.
Given the election results, the states that pose the greatest risk to free and fair elections are Florida, North Carolina and Texas, according to the States United Democracy Center, Protect Democracy and Law Forward. Those groups released the latest version of their joint report, “ A Democracy Crisis in the Making: How State Legislatures are Politicizing, Criminalizing, and Interfering with Elections,” on Wednesday.
“As Americans, we may disagree on a lot of things, but we can all agree that voters — not election denying officials — should choose our elected leaders,” said Rachel Homer, counsel with Protect Democracy. “At ballot boxes across the country, American voters made clear: they don’t want politicians who attack and undermine our elections to be running their states. This is a big win for our democracy. But in some state legislatures, the election denial fever hasn’t not broken. The threat is still very real and we can’t afford to ignore it.”
Both Florida and Texas are in the high-risk category because the report identifies the states’ senior officials – governors, attorneys general, secretaries of state – the legislative majorities have all embraced former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent. Those two states have also been at the forefront of legislative activity tightening voting rules.
While North Carolina’s executive branch leaders have, for the most part, rejected election denialism, Tar Heel State legislatures considered a number of bills “that would increase the risk of election subversion during the 2022 legislative session,” the report states. Those bills, which were not enacted, may have another life with Republicans increasing their majorities in both legislative chambers.
Georgia and Nevada are considered “medium risk” states; Arizona, Michigan, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are “states to watch.”
Most of these states are considered presidential battlegrounds, although Republicans have solidified their hold on Florida and Texas in recent cycles.
The danger to election integrity take on multiple forms, according to the report, including: election denialism, legislative efforts to subvert fair elections, and threats and intimidation – toward election officials, poll workers
“This year, voters in Wisconsin and across the country came out to protect our freedom to vote and stand on the side of our democracy,” said Elizabeth Pierson, an attorney at Wisconsin-based Law Forward. “Poll workers and election officials all across the country administered another free election, which was not a certainty in this environment of increasing voting restrictions and threats to our election administration system from right-wing actors. While we celebrate this latest free election, we know that those anti-democratic actors have not disappeared. Together, we can stay vigilant to the threats and fight for a democracy that includes all of us.”
The groups’ ongoing study has tracked state-level bills that fall into five categories: attempting to take control of election results, establishing “unprofessional” audits, taking authority away from election officials, placing “unworkable burdens” on election administrators, and imposing unfair penalties for election-related crimes. They identified 244 such bills introduced in 2022 across 33 states; 24 of them were enacted, on top of 32 passed into law the previous year
“We tracked over 400 attempts to pass legislation that would put free and fair elections on the chopping block in states across the country. But during these past midterm elections, voters displayed a vigilant rejection of these hyper-partisan actors and stood firm to protect some of the most at risk states from falling into turmoil,” said Victoria Bassetti, senior counsel for the States United Democracy Center. “As we head towards 2024, we will continue to analyze the anti-democracy playbook to ensure we can keep them from changing the rules and changing the game in their favor.”
One state they are watching closely is Texas, where legislators have already prefiled election-related bills in advance of the 2023 session.
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.