When Americans first elected Donald Trump president in 2016, there were nearly 4 billion people living in nations where they could vote in fair and competitive elections.
Last year, when Trump took office again, this estimate had fallen by half, to barely above 2 billion.
In the intervening years, the number of people barred from voting within conventional dictatorships (or “closed autocracies”) increased from an estimated 1.74 billion to 2.27 billion. But most of the decline in people who can vote in fair and competitive elections can be attributed to the global rise of what I call electoral dictatorships, also known as “electoral autocracies.”
While elections are banned in conventional dictatorships, elections are regularly held in electoral dictatorships. But to ensure their continuous grip on power, the electoral dictators—who identify as presidents and prime ministers—hold uncompetitive and unfair elections after aggressively suppressing political opponents.
In 2016, an estimated 1.94 billion people lived in electoral dictatorships.
In 2025, 3.77 billion people did.
If Republicans retain control of Congress in the midterms, then an electoral dictatorship is likely to emerge in the United States. Read more from Dr. Ibram X. Kendi’s essay.
