It wasn't just candidates on the ballot across the country this week — in some places, the method for casting those votes was under consideration as well.
Ranked-choice voting, the most popular alternative to traditional ballot-casting, was approved by voters in three cities on Nov. 2: Ann Arbor, Mich., Broomfield, Colo., and Westbrook, Maine. In addition, numerous cities that had previously authorized a switch to RCV used it for the first time this week.
The vote in Ann Arbor, where an overwhelming 73 percent of ballots were in favor of a switch to ranked-choice voting, is both the most significant and least consequential of the three victories. Ann Arbor, home to 124,000 people, is by far the largest of the three cities to vote on RCV. However, the new system cannot be instituted unless the Michigan Legislature grants its own approval to such a change. If state law is changed, voters in Ann Arbor will use RCV to elect the mayor and city council
"Ann Arbor voters demonstrated at about a two-to-one margin that they want RCV," said Deb Otis, senior research analyst for FairVote, a nonprofit election reform organization that specializes in ranked-choice voting. She explained that following such a strong victory, local advocates are working on a campaign, including an analysis of state law, so the city can institute a new elections system.
In Broomfield, a consolidated city and county of 70,000 people, the vote was far closer, as RCV passed with 52 percent of the vote. Ranked elections will be used to select the mayor and council members beginning with the 2023 balloting.
And in Westbrook (population 19,000), 63 percent of voters cast ballots in favor of using RCV to elect the mayor, city councilors and school committee members, joining Portland as the second Maine city to institute RCV for municipal elections. Ranked-choice voting is already used for all state and federal elections in Maine. In addition, Westbrook will use proportional representation for positions with multiple officeholders.
Voters in two other cities — Austin, Texas, and Burlington, Vt. — approved RCV measures earlier this year.
In a ranked-choice (or instant runoff) election, voters rank their preferred candidates in order. If no candidate receives a majority of the vote, then the person with the fewest votes is eliminated and their supporters' votes are distributed to the second option. This process continues until a candidate has a majority of the vote.
"Adopting ranked-choice voting in more towns, cities and states across the country will go a long way toward reducing the polarization that plagues our politics, and it's a way to end the two-party duopoly at the ballot box," said Josh Silver, CEO of RepresentUs, which also works across party lines to reform the political system. "RCV gives voters more choices, it ensures that the majority of voters approve of the eventual election winner, and it saves money."
According to Otis, 32 cities across seven states used ranked-choice voting this year, 22 of them for the first time. Local advocates, including Stan Lockhart of Utah RCV and Karl Landskroener of FairVote Minnesota, claimed their research shows ranked-choice voting is growing in popularity in their regions. Twenty Utah municipalities, including Salt Lake City, used RCV this year, joining five Minnesota cities: Minneapolis, St. Paul, St. Louis Park, Minnetonka and Bloomington.
"We're seeing midterm-level turnout for local races," said Landskroener, who also said RCV is having an impact on representation. He noted that for the first time, people of color will hold a majority of seats on the Minneapolis city council. In New York City, which debuted RCV primaries this year, a majority of the city council will be women for the first time following this year's elections.
Earlier this year, Virginia Republicans used RCV for the first time to select their candidates for the state's top three offices. Their nominees — Glenn Youngkin, Winsome Sears, and Jason Miyares — swept the elections for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general.
"The big winners in Virginia and New York City were boosted after being nominated by ranked-choice voting, while voters keep saying how much they like it, whether in blue, red, or swing parts of the country," said FairVote CEO Rob Richie.
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.