Runoff elections often come at a high cost to taxpayers, but yield some of the lowest voter turnouts of any political contest, a new report found.
The report, released Thursday by the center-left Third Way and nonpartisan FairVote, analyzed recent runoff elections in Texas and Louisiana. In both states, an additional round of voting cost taxpayers millions of dollars, while only attracting a small share of the electorate.
The two good-government organizations suggest implementing ranked-choice voting in states that hold runoff elections in order to lessen the financial burden and preserve voter engagement.
Runoff elections were first implemented around the start of the 20th century as a tool for white Southern Democrats to unite their factions going into general elections and maintain power over Republicans. Ten states, mostly in the South, still hold runoffs if no candidate reaches the required threshold for victory — usually a majority of the vote — in the primary. Georgia and Louisiana are the only two states that also hold runoffs for general elections.
Third Way and FairVote, using public records requests, gathered data on the election expenses for seven of Texas' most populous counties, as well as for two statewide contests in Louisiana.
In 2018 and 2020, runoff elections in Harris, Dallas, Travis, Bexar, Collin, Tarrant and Fort Bend counties cost taxpayers nearly $5.5 million on top of the $11 million spent on primaries in those same jurisdictions.
On average, voter turnout in those 2018 and 2020 contests dropped a whopping 51 percent from the primaries to their subsequent runoffs. This data shows the "strong disincentive for voters to return to the polls and vote again for the same office," the report states.
In Louisiana, the nominating contests are known as "jungle primaries." They are nonpartisan, meaning all candidates run on one initial ballot. Any candidate who captures a majority of the vote wins the race. Runoffs are therefore treated more like a general election. Still, the election spending data shows a similar problem.
The 2016 Senate primary cost taxpayers just over $6 million. Then one month later, the state spent almost the same amount (more than $5 million) on the runoff for that contest. The 2019 gubernatorial primary and subsequent runoff cost nearly the same amounts.
While turnout in the 2016 Senate runoff dropped 54 percent from the primary, voter participation actually increased by 12 percent from the 2019 gubernatorial primary to the runoff. The report says turnout was helped by the gubernatorial runoff being competitive and held in November, when voters are more likely to expect elections. As a result, the researchers recommend states schedule runoffs in November whenever possible to bolster turnout.
But the best solution, according to Third Way and FairVote, is ranked-choice voting, which is one of the core tenets of FairVote's work. In an RCV election, voters rank their preferred candidate. If no one receives a majority of first-position votes, an "instant runoff" ensues and the ballots cast for the candidate with the fewest first choices are then distributed to voters' second options. The process continues until someone has a majority.
The two groups argue RCV would reduce election costs, improve the voting experience and bolster the campaigns of women and people of color.
"States across the South are burdening voters with runoff elections by making people set aside time out of their busy days to vote in an extra round. And to kick them while they are down, in several instances, governments are using precious taxpayer dollars for this inconvenience," said David de la Fuente, senior political analyst at Third Way and one of the authors of the report.
"Ranked-choice voting would enshrine the majority rule voters want for a healthy democracy while saving their time and dime," he said.
Ranked-choice voting is currently used in 30 jurisdictions across the country, as well as statewide in Maine. Alaska will also use it statewide starting next year. In May, two dozen cities in Utah opted to use RCV for municipal elections this fall.
New York City used ranked-choice voting for citywide primaries for the first time this year, and it appears to have resulted in women being poised to dominate the city council for the first time. Advocates point to RCV as a big reason for the shift in representation.
Another alternative to plurality voting that has gained momentum in recent years is approval voting. Under that system, voters choose any number of candidates they "approve" of, and the candidate chosen the most wins. St. Louis, Mo., joined Fargo, N.D., this year as the first cities to use approval voting.
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.