Floridians will decide this fall whether to transform the state's polarized politics by opening most primaries to all voters, regardless of party.
Because Florida is the nation's biggest battleground state, the result will be enormously important to the future of one of the core causes of the democracy reform world — diminishing the Republican and Democratic duopoly over political power.
The measure's place on the November ballot was assured Thursday by the state Supreme Court, which is called on to review every constitutional amendment proposed through the gathering of petition signatures. The court ruled 4-1 that the proposal met the necessary legal and clarity requirements.
Attorneys for both parties, which agree on almost nothing in Florida these days, united behind the same argument in trying to derail the referendum: Adoption would deprive partisan loyalists of what should be their exclusive right to choose the preferred candidate of their party.
Advocates of opening the system argued that what is paramount should be the rights of almost 3.7 million unaffiliated Floridians to participate in the political process. The current system, they maintained, is effectively disenfranchising almost 30 percent of the state's electorate — which is growing faster in the state than registration in either party — by barring them from casting ballots at a crucial stage in the electoral process.
Outside of court, they argue that the current primary system, because it reliably produces very conservative or very liberal candidates, fails to reflect the more centrist nature of the population and is unable to adequately respond to the state's needs.
"This may be the most important issue on the ballot in any state other than the presidential election because, all across the country, everyone is looking,'' said Gene Stearns, who runs All Voters Vote, which has been pushing the referendum for five years with $6 million in backing from Miami health care mogul Mike Fernandez.
"If Florida allows nonpartisan elections, everyone else will follow," Stearns said. "The whole objective is to reduce the toxicity of our political process."
Sixty percent of the state will need to vote "yes" for the change to take effect, which would happen in 2024. Then, all registered voters would face a single primary ballot for governor, other statewide offices and seats in the Legislature. The top two vote-getters, even if from the same party, would advance to the general election.
The benefits, advocates say, include rewarding the candidates with the broadest (and likely most centrist) appeal and insulating candidates from defeat at the hands of well-financed opposition campaigns that appeal to the ideological extremes.
Florida is among a minority of states where primaries are completely closed to voters not registered red or blue. Most states allow some sort of crossover or independent participation.
Terms for the far-reaching system that Florida is contemplating include "nonpartisan blanket primary" and "jungle primary." Nebraska was the first to embrace this system, back in 1936, but only for election to what's officially a nonpartisan Legislature. Louisiana (since 1975), Washington (since 2004) and California (since 2010) conduct top-two primaries for both state-level races and seats in Congress. Florida's measure would not apply to Senate and House races.
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.