The 2026 midterm elections should be the American people’s next best opportunity to issue a verdict on the direction of the country. In a functioning democracy, the outcome would offer a clear signal: do most voters want change or to stay the course?
But in reality, we won’t get a clear signal because our broken election system makes it nearly impossible. We already know that 80% of Senate races and 90% of U.S. House races won’t be decided in November, when most of us vote. They’ll be decided months earlier in party primaries—where turnout is low, millions of independents are locked out, and ideological special interests hold outsized sway. Technically, we’ll get an outcome in 2026—but it’s hard to argue it will reflect the will of most Americans.
The problem isn’t just who gets elected—it’s how they get elected. It’s easy to blame the most extreme voices in Congress, but the real issue is the system that rewards them. In 2024, 87% of U.S. House races were effectively decided in party primaries—by just 7% of voters. No wonder only about 10% of Americans feel the government represents them well, while 80% don’t believe elected officials care what they think.
That same Primary Problem is already looming over 2026—with implications for voters, parties, and the country.
For voters, we’ll be subjected to yet another “heads I win, tails you lose” contest. More Americans identify as politically independent than as Democrats or Republicans—yet 16.6 million independents will be disenfranchised by closed primaries in 16 states. And while we talk about a two-party system, it’s really two one-party systems. In most general elections, the outcome is predetermined. Without real competition, there’s no real choice, accountability, or representation.
The parties seem fine with this, at least for now. The system protects their hold on power, despite low favorability—Democrats at 40%, Republicans at 44%. They don’t need to be broadly popular to win; they just need to be less unpopular than the other side. In any other industry, a new product would already be on the shelves. In politics, the existing duopoly conspires to block new competition.
But the Primary Problem is already giving both parties severe heartburn heading into 2026. Just ask Sen. John Cornyn of Texas. He’s being challenged by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for being insufficiently loyal to Trump—despite voting with him over 99% of the time. Democrats face a similar dynamic: activist and former DNC Co-Vice Chair David Hogg has pledged to spend millions targeting incumbents he views as too willing to compromise. The likely outcome in both cases? Parties pulled further to the extremes—and further from the voters.
Party leaders know this could cost them seats—and majorities—because it’s already happened. In 2022, GOP primary winners in Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona went on to lose winnable Senate races because they were well outside the mainstream. That same year, Democratic Rep. Kurt Schrader was defeated in a primary, and the seat flipped Republican in November.
The answer isn’t a white knight politician. It’s a political reform: open primaries for all voters and all candidates, regardless of party. In an open, all-candidate primary, everyone runs on the same ballot and the top finishers advance to the general election. Leaders must appeal to a broad electorate from day one. The threat of being “primaried” by ideological hardliners vanishes—and general elections start to matter again, even in deep-blue or deep-red districts.
This isn’t hypothetical. Alaska adopted all-candidate primaries in 2022 and doubled the number of voters who cast meaningful votes (i.e., votes that actually mattered in determining election outcomes). Oklahoma may consider a similar reform in 2026. And New Mexico recently passed bipartisan legislation to allow independents to vote in party primaries—with Pennsylvania potentially next.
The Primary Problem didn’t appear overnight—and it won’t be solved overnight. But reform is not only possible, it’s already happening. The sooner we open primaries to all voters and all candidates, the sooner we can build a representative democracy that works for all Americans.
Nick Troiano is the executive director of Unite America, a philanthropic venture fund that invests in nonpartisan election reform to foster a more representative and functional government. He’s also the author of “ The Primary Solution.”
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.