Editor's note: This article has been updated to correct errors in the review of New York's primaries.
Voters in two of the nation’s most populous states will head to the polls on Tuesday, kicking off the last month of the midterm primaries.
Florida is conducting primary elections for federal, state and local races, while New Yorkers finally get to pick their nominees for the U.S. House and state Senate. Both states feature high-profile incumbents hoping to hang on to their seats.
Both states conduct closed primaries, meaning people may only participate in the races for parties with which they are affiliated. More than one-quarter of voters in each state are unaffiliated and therefore cannot vote in the primaries.
Florida
In the Sunshine State, all eyes will be on a pair of Democratic primaries.
In one race, voters will pick a nominee to challenge Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has risen through the GOP ranks and is considered a possible contender for the White House in 2024. DeSantis is seen by many as the strongest competitor to former President Donald Trump if they both seek the nomination in two years.
Regardless of White House talk, DeSantis must face whoever emerges from the four-candidate Democratic primary for governor. The contenders include Rep. Charlie Crist (a former governor as well as state senator and state attorney general). When he held those previous positions, Crist was a Republican until becoming an independent in 2010 and then a Democrat in 2012.
Crist leads in the polls, with Nikkie Fried, a former commissioner of agriculture and consumer service, trailing. Cadance Daniel and Robert Willis are also running in the primary.
Democratic voters will also pick a candidate to challenge Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, finished second to Trump in the 2016 primaries. He will face one of four Democrats: Rep. Val Demings, Ricardo De La Fuente, Brian Rush and William Sanchez. Demings is expected to win the race.
The federal primaries will be rounded out with nominating contests in 28 House seats. Republicans currently hold the majority of seats but Democrats will hope to close the gap Nov. 8.
The most anticipated of those races is taking place in the 1st district, held by Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz. He is seeking reelection with an endorsement from Trump. However, an investigation into Gaetz’s sexual relations with a minor have cast a cloud over his standing. Democratic candidates Rebekah Jones and Margaret Schiller hope to battle him in the general election.
Other races on Tuesday’s ballot include seats for Legislature and school boards.
Florida’s elections have endured many changes in the past years. The Legislature enacted a sweeping bill in 2021 that placed new limits on voting by mail, in-person voting, the use of drop boxes and voter registration; many minority groups, including Black voters, have had a harder time registering to vote and even casting a ballot.
Among the provisions in that bill:
- Officials may not proactively distribute ballots by mail.
- Drop box use is limited to business hours, and mobile drop boxes are banned.
- People may not deliver more than two ballots in addition to their own and that of an immediate family member.
These and other restrictions are making it harder for Black people to vot e in Florida, according to activists.
In 2018, voters passed a constitutional amendment to restore voting rights for people who complete their prison sentence, but the following year the state enacted a law requiring that people with felony convictions pay all fines and fees before regaining the right to vote. Court battles over that law continue
A bill enacted this year created an Office of Election Crimes and Security to investigate possible election crimes. Under DeSantis’ direction, the agency has arrested 20 formerly incarcerated individuals for voting in Florida.
Read more about election law changes in Florida.
New York
New Yorkers will hit the polls for a rare second round of non-runoff primaries Tuesday. The state had scheduled all of its primaries for June 28 but redistricting delays required a second date be added. The New York Court of Appeals ruled that the state’s congressional and state Senate maps — configured by Democrats — were unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders and needed to be redrawn. Election analysts have predicted that the new House map will result in as many as five incumbents losing their primaries.
Democrats are hoping for a shift in the political environment following the recent Supreme Court decision that removed constitutional protections for abortion rights. However, voter turnout could be low due to many New Yorkers traveling during the summer months. This has made predicting the outcomes very difficult.
Voters will pick nominees for the state’s 26 House seats. Much of the attention will be focused on the 12th district, where two incumbents, Carolyn Maloney and Jerrold Nadler, are facing off for the Democratic nomination — a situation forced on by the redrawn maps. Nadler has been endorsed by Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer of New York.
Another highly contested race will be decided in 10th district where Democrat Mondaire Jones is the incumbent. He will face New York Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, New York City Councilwoman Carlina Rivera, and former Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman, and Daniel Goldman, who served as counsel to House Democrats during Trump’s first impeachment proceedings.
For Republicans, the race for Rep. Chris Jacobs’ seat will be incredibly competitive. Jacobs announced he would not seek reelection after receiving backlash from fellow Republicans after embracing gun control reform following a mass shooting that occurred in his district in May. New York Republican Party Chairman Nick Langworthy and Carl Paladino are facing off for the nomination. Paladino has made several headlines in the past due to his propensity for offensive comments.
The elections process has been altered by a number of new bills that have mostly acted to improve voter access, the most noteworthy being the 2022 John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act of New York. The legislation includes reforms that protect people of color from discrimination and expands accessibility for those not proficient in English. The bill includes many provisions that protect POC voters from intimidation, deception, and discrimination during elections.
Read more about changes to election laws in New York.
Oklahoma
Oklahoma requires primary runoffs when no candidate in a race earns a majority of the vote. Therefore, voters will return to the polls Tuesday to finalize the nominees in a handful of races, including the Republican contest to complete the term started by Sen. Jim Inhofe, who is resigning. Neither of the two frontrunners, Rep. Markwayne Mullin and T.W. Shannon, received the majority of the vote needed for an outright win during the June 28 primaries.
Mullin currently represents Oklahoma’s 2nd district, a position that he has held since 2013. Shannon served as a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives from 2006 to 2014. The two outpaced 11 other candidates. The winner will face former Rep. Kendra Horn in November and either of the Republicans would be the only Native American in the Senate.
With Mullin seeking the Senate seat, his House district is up for grabs and no one was able to win the GOP nomination in initial primary voting. State Rep. Avery Frix and former state Sen. John Brecheen advanced to the runoff and the winner will compete with Democrat Naomi Andrews in the general election.
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.