With the midterm elections just over a year away, two issues are top of mind for voters: Covid-19 and abortion, recent polling found.
Texas' new ban on abortions after six weeks of pregnancy has sparked protests in the Lone Star State, as well as nationwide. The new law is also galvanizing some voters, mainly Democrats and women of color, to participate in the 2022 elections, according to a survey released Monday by All In Together, a nonpartisan nonprofit that encourages civic and political engagement among women.
The pandemic is also an issue of high importance for voters, as more than 700,000 Americans have died from Covid-19. While Democrats and independents indicated the coronavirus was the most important issue to them, Republicans rated it as third most important, behind national security and rising prices.
Just under three-quarters of all registered voters said they are "almost certain" or "probably" going to vote in next year's elections for Congress, state offices and local positions. Republicans showed slightly more motivation, with 59 percent almost certain of voting, than Democrats (49 percent) or independents (42 percent).
Women (53 percent) were slightly more likely than men (49 percent) to be almost certain about voting next year. A majority of Black women and Asian American or Pacific Islander women said they were likely to participate in the midterms, whereas only 40 percent of Latinas said the same.
Additionally, older Americans showed more certainty in voting next year than younger people. More than three-quarters of voters 65 and older and almost two-thirds of voters ages 50-64 said they were almost certain of voting in 2022, compared to two-fifths of voters ages 30-49 and 28 percent of voters under 30.
However, Texas' recent abortion ban could drive more people to the polls next year. While Americans are evenly split on their views of the new law — 46 percent favor it and 47 percent oppose it — nearly three-fifths of voters said Texas' law makes them more interested in voting. (Other polling has found a majority opposes the law with less than 40 percent supporting it.)
The abortion ban is particularly motivating among young women, with 73 percent saying they are more interested in voting next year because of it. Latinas of all ages also indicated more interest in voting (64 percent), as did Asian American and Pacific Islander women (63 percent) and Black women (58 percent).
When it comes to partisan turnout, Democrats are the most motivated by the new restrictions on abortion (68 percent indicating a higher inclination of voting in the midterms). A slight majority of Republicans (52 percent) said they were more interested in voting because of Texas' new law, whereas less than half of independents (48 percent) said the same.
The survey of 1,000 registered voters nationwide was conducted by Lake Research and Emerson College Polling for All In Together from Sept. 22 to 24. The survey oversampled Black women, Latinas, and Asian American and Pacific Islander women, but those oversamples were adjusted to reflect actual population proportions. The margin of error was 3.1 percentage points.
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.