Ashley Houghton is the Vice President of Programs and Policy at FairVote, a nonpartisan organization seeking better elections.
Deb Otis is the Director of Research and Policy at FairVote.
In the wake of the 2023 elections, the bulk of media coverage and analysis has understandably focused on whether Democrats or Republicans have more momentum going into 2024. But there’s no question that Election Day 2023 gave momentum to the fastest-growing nonpartisan voting reform in the nation: ranked choice voting.
On November 7, eleven cities across six states used ranked choice voting (RCV) in their elections, including Boulder, Colorado, which used RCV for the first time to elect their mayor. Ten more cities – including Salt Lake City – used RCV when Utah held its elections on November 21.
And more voters want to join them. Three cities in Michigan voted to adopt RCV for the first time, while Minnetonka, MN and Easthampton, MA voted to keep or expand it. With these victories, RCV has won 27 city ballot measures in a row.
This is a massive change from just seven years ago, when only ten cities used RCV. Now, 51 places use RCV, home to roughly 16 million Americans. That includes two states (Alaska and Maine) and 49 counties and states, with more states and cities – including Oregon, Nevada, and the District of Columbia – slated to vote on the use of RCV next year.
Poll after poll tells us that Americans see our current politics as toxic, divisive, and unresponsive to voters. An Associated Press poll this summer told us that just one in ten Americans feel our democracy is working very well. A Pew Research study this September found a staggering 63% have little to no confidence in the future of the U.S. political system.
Compare that with ranked choice voting, which tackles these problems and is popular everywhere it’s used.
Here’s how it works: In races with more than two candidates, voters are asked to rank the candidates in order of preference – first choice, second choice, and so on. If no candidate earns more than 50% of first choices, an “instant runoff” occurs. If your favorite candidate is eliminated, your vote counts for your highest-ranked choice who has a chance to win.
RCV can change our politics by giving voters better choices, better representation, and more positive campaigns. Voters are able to express their true preferences, without playing “spoiler” or “wasting” their vote on a candidate who can’t win. At the same time, candidates are forced to appeal to a broad coalition of voters – even those who rank another candidate Number 1 – to build the majority they need to win.
The movement for RCV is both bottom-up and top-down – citizens and local legislators are winning RCV city by city (including the five this November), showing that change is possible amidst gridlock. At the same time, pro-RCV efforts are moving in Congress. Just this week, Colorado Senator Michael Bennet introduced the Voter Choice Act, which would provide funding for cities, counties, and states to implement RCV.
Yet Election Day 2023 didn’t just show that voters want RCV; it also demonstrated how RCV can deliver better campaigns and more representative and responsive governance.
Look at Boulder and Portland, Maine’s hotly contested mayoral elections. In Portland, two losing candidates swiftly congratulated the winner with each calling the race “amazing”; the mayor-elect praised a “civil” campaign that’s “what this city deserves.” In Boulder’s first use of RCV, the two leading candidates drew clear policy distinctions, but the losing candidate quickly conceded and said that “the city’s in great shape” under his opponent’s leadership.
It’s not just nicer campaigns – by empowering start-up candidates to run instead of “waiting their turn,” RCV has led to more representative bodies of leaders. On Election Day, St. Paul, MN elected its first all-female city council; all are also under 40 and six out of seven are people of color. Cities like New York and Las Cruces, NM have also elected their first majority- or all-female councils using RCV; Minneapolis and Salt Lake City have elected their first majority people-of-color councils.
Of course, RCV doesn’t favor one demographic or ideological group – but by lowering the barrier to entry for underrepresented candidates, it gets us closer to elected bodies that look like the people they serve.
Ultimately, at a time when most Americans feel that our political system isn’t working as it should, RCV is offering glimmers of hope. That’s a 2023 election story that we can all be excited about – and one that sets the stage for even more wins for RCV in 2024.
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.