Following the New York City primaries last month, the debate over ranked-choice voting is heating up elsewhere across the country.
The sixth largest city in Michigan and the most populous county in Washington are both considering adopting ranked-choice voting for future elections. But in Alaska, a lawsuit is challenging the state's new election system, which includes ranking candidates for general elections.
Ranked-choice voting saw a successful citywide debut in New York City, despite a tallying blunder by the Board of Elections. While some critics tried to blame the alternative voting method for the issues, proponents noted the mishap was caused by human error unrelated to RCV.
Outside of the Big Apple, ranked-choice voting was also used for the Virginia Republican Party's nominating contest for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. And this year almost two dozen cities in Utah have opted to switch to ranked-choice voting for mayoral and city council races.
Here are three more places where the alternative voting method is making waves:
Michigan
On Monday, the Lansing City Council moved to put a ranked-choice voting initiative on the November ballot. If voters approve the measure, the new system will be adopted at the beginning of next year for mayoral, city clerk and city council elections.
The council also approved a second ballot initiative that would eliminate local primary elections if the ranked-choice voting system is adopted. Instead, there would be a general election with a wider pool of candidates.
Currently, the only city in Michigan that uses RCV is Eastpointe.
Washington
Council members in King County, which includes Seattle, announced this week that their campaign for ranked-choice voting will be put on hold temporarily.
Last month, Girmay Zahilay and Jeanne Kohl-Welles proposed a ballot initiative to adopt RCV for certain county-level races, including the county council. The original plan was to have the new system, if approved by voters, go into effect next year. But Zahilay tweeted Monday that their proposal will be delayed until 2022 due to time constraints brought on by ballot initiative deadlines.
Earlier this year, a bill that would have allowed cities and counties in Washington to decide which elections, if any, to use ranked-choice voting failed to pass through the Legislature. King County is exempt from that prohibition.
Alaska
Last year, Alaska became the second state, after Maine, to adopt ranked-choice voting for statewide elections. Starting next year, Alaska will use a new system in which the top-four primary candidates, regardless of party, will advance to a ranked-choice general election.
Despite a majority of voters approving these reforms during last year's election, some Alaskans don't want to see the changes go into effect. This week a judge heard a case that challenges the new election system for alleged constitutional violations.
The lawsuit was filed inDecember, a day after the election results were certified, by Alaska Independence Party Chairman Robert Bird, Libertarian Scott Kohlhass and Republican attorney Kenneth Jacobus.
"Marginalizing political parties, as this system does, harms the right of Alaskans to free political association, and allows those with money to take control," Jacobus argued in a recent court filing.
However, Alaska's assistant attorney general, Margaret Paton Walsh, argued the new system does not violate the constitution and the plaintiffs' claim is just a policy objection.
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.