Secretary of state elections are not usually top of mind for voters, but that could change next year.
Republicans who have called the legitimacy of the 2020 election into question or sought to overturn the results are already eyeing secretary of state campaigns in key states. Twenty-six states will hold contests for their top election official during the 2022 election cycle.
The campaigns of these pro-Trump conservatives threaten to continue the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories about election fraud, of which there was no widespread evidence. And if elected, they could wield a huge amount of power over the 2024 presidential race.
The duties and responsibilities of the secretary of state vary across the country. But typically, the position manages how elections are conducted and oversees maintenance of voter rolls. In some jurisdictions, county clerks and other local officials also play important roles in administering elections.
A handful of conservatives have already thrown their hats into the ring for secretary of state in potential battlegrounds, Politico first reported.
- Rep. Jody Hice of Georgia, who voted against certifying the election results, is running against incumbent and fellow Republican Brad Raffensberger, who has defended his management of the 2020 election.
- Jim Marchant, who sued unsuccessfully to overturn his failed bid for Nevada's 4th congressional district, is now campaigning for secretary of state. Republican Barbara Cegavske currently holds the position and is under fire from the party for her management of last year's election.
- In Michigan, Kristina Karamo is running for secretary of state after falsely claiming Trump won and repeatedly challenging the election results when she served as a poll watcher in Detroit. Democrat Jocelyn Benson currently holds this position.
- And Arizona state Rep. Mark Finchem, one of the biggest proponents of the controversial election audit in Maricopa County, is vying for the top election official spot currently held by Democrat Katie Hobbs.
Last week, Hobbs advised Maricopa, the most populous county in Arizona, to replace all the voting machines involved in the audit conducted by Cyber Ninjas, a private contractor. Republicans in the state Senate ordered the recount of more than 2 million ballots in an effort to subvert the 2020 election results.
"I have grave concerns regarding the security and integrity of these machines, given that the chain of custody, a critical security tenet, has been compromised and election officials do not know what was done to the machines while under Cyber Ninjas' control," Hobbs wrote in a letter to the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
Now, there is growing momentum from Trump supporters to replicate Arizona's election audit in other parts of the country. A judge in Georgia recently approved an audit of Fulton County's 147,000 mail-in ballots. This follows three separate state-run election audits, including a hand recount, all of which found no evidence of voter fraud.
A CNN survey conducted at the end of April found that five months after the election, nearly two-thirds of voters who lean Republican still believe that Joe Biden did not legitimately win enough votes to win the presidency.
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.