Democrats in Wyoming have decided to use ranked-choice voting for this year's final statewide presidential caucuses.
It's the smallest prize of any state, with just 14 delegates at stake, but the party says the switch could make the April 4 gatherings among the most impassioned and well-attended of the nominating season.
The decision also makes Wyoming the only one of the four caucus states where all participants will rank their choices. Nevada is debuting RCV in presidential politics in February, but for early voters only, not caucus goers.
Under the new plan, mail-in ballots allowing the ranking of as many as five candidates will be sent to everyone who has registered as a Democrat two weeks before the caucuses — not just those who ask for a ballot. As an alternative to voting by mail, party members can attend their local caucuses and fill in their RCV forms after the haggling and speechmaking.
Those receiving too few top-choice votes will be eliminated and their supporters' ballots will be redistributed to second-place or third-place choices until the field is culled to those named on at least 15 percent of the ballots, the threshold for sending a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee in July.
"These events are crowded, rowdy, and loud. And they're a whole lot of fun — but they can make it hard for every" member of the party to participate, Wyoming party Chairman Joe Barbuto said statement. "We made some changes to ensure we hear every Democratic voice from across the Equality State."
He also signaled that, starting in 2024, the party is likely to switch to a primary.
No matter how Democrats vote, though, President Trump is sure to win the state's three electoral votes in November. He carried the state by 46 percentage points in 2016, marking the 13th straight time it's been colored red on the presidential election map.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.