罗纳德·布朗斯坦 在竞选活动的最后几周，最值得关注的指标是民主党候选人在不认可总统唐纳德·特朗普的选民中的表现。
By Ronald Brownstein The most important measure to watch in the campaign’s final weeks is how Democratic candidates are performing among voters who disapprove of President Donald Trump.
许多候选人在这些选民中尚未达到赢得选举所需的基准——尤其是在偏红的州。但特朗普支持率下降给共和党带来的挑战依然巨大。为了避免在11月遭遇惨败，今年大多数共和党候选人需要赢得的不认可特朗普表现的选民数量，将远超几乎所有共和党人在特朗普第一个任期内所获得的水平。
Many are not yet hitting the benchmarks among those voters they need to put away their races — especially in red-leaning states. But the challenge Trump’s decline presents to the GOP remains enormous. To avoid a wipeout in November, most Republican candidates this year will need to win significantly more voters who disapprove of Trump’s performance than almost Republican did during his first term.
自20世纪90年代以来，对总统表现的评估已成为中期选举中最重要的因素。追踪总统支持率的平均值显示，60%或更多的人不认可特朗普的工作表现。这比2018年选举时明显更差，当时的出口民调发现54%的人不认可。他目前的处境也明显弱于2022年的乔·拜登、2010年的巴拉克·奥巴马、2006年的乔治·W·布什和1994年的比尔·克林顿。这对共和党人来说是一个不祥的先例，因为其他几位总统以及特朗普本人在2018年都失去了对众议院的控制。克林顿、布什和奥巴马还遭遇了参议院的重大失利。
Since the 1990s, assessments of the president’s performance have become the most important factor in midterm elections. Averages that track presidential approval show that 60% or more disapprove of the job Trump is doing. That’s significantly worse than in the 2018 election, when exit polls found that 54% disapproved. His current position is also considerably weaker than Joe Biden in 2022, Barack Obama in 2010, George W. Bush in 2006 and Bill Clinton in 1994. That’s an ominous precedent for Republicans because those other presidents, and Trump himself in 2018, lost control of the House. Clinton, Bush and Obama also suffered major Senate losses.
在特朗普的第一个任期内，选民对他的态度对国会选举的影响比对其前任更为强烈。在克林顿、布什和奥巴马时期的出口民调发现，82%至86%不认可他们的选民将票投给了另一党的众议院候选人。2018年的出口民调发现，90%不认可特朗普的选民支持民主党众议院候选人；2020年，93%不认可特朗普的选民投票给民主党。在这两次选举中，每一位民主党参议院现任议员或挑战者同样赢得了至少89%不认可特朗普的选民的支持，唯一例外是在2020年输给缅因州共和党人苏珊·柯林斯的那位民主党人。
During Trump’s first term, attitudes toward him shaped congressional elections even more powerfully than for his predecessors. Exit polls under Clinton, Bush and Obama found that 82%-86% of voters who disapproved of them voted for the other party’s House candidates. In 2018, the exit polls found, 90% of voters who disapproved of Trump supported Democrats for the House; in 2020, 93% of Trump disapprovers voted Democratic. Every Democratic Senate incumbent or challenger over those two elections likewise won at least 89% of voters who disapproved of Trump, except the Democrat who lost to Maine Republican Susan Collins in 2020.
特朗普在选举中的负面影响更为显著，因为他要求共和党人必须对他表现出绝对的忠诚；因此，几乎没有任何共和党人（或许除了柯林斯以及阿拉斯加州的丽莎·默斯科斯基之外）能够保持独立的立场或观点。同样重要的是，特朗普所引发的反对情绪的强烈程度：绝大多数反对他的选民都持有极其强烈的负面看法。那些强烈反对现任总统的选民，往往会以远高于那些态度较为中立的选民的比例（通常超过90%）投票反对其所属政党的候选人。
Trump has a stronger down-ballot effect because he demands such complete loyalty that hardly any Republicans (apart, perhaps, from Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski) have established much of an independent identity. As important, though, is the intensity of opposition Trump provokes: The vast majority of voters who disapprove of him do so “strongly.”And voters who strongly disapprove of a president typically vote against his party’s candidates at much higher rates — often well above 90% — than the more ambivalent voters who “somewhat” disapprove.
在特朗普的第一任任期内，共和党的众议院和参议院候选人通常能够赢得90%或更多支持他们的选民的支持。这种选举格局意味着，在特朗普获得高支持率的地区，几乎没有民主党人能够获胜；而在特朗普支持率较低的地区，共和党人获胜的可能性也更加渺茫。丹·塞纳曾在2018年民主党重新获得众议院多数席位时担任民主党国会竞选委员会主席，他表示：在那些选区中，几乎没有共和党候选人的支持率能够超过特朗普的支持率。
At the same time, during Trump’s first term, Republican House and Senate candidates routinely won 90% or more of voters who of the president. These patterns meant few Democrats could win in places where Trump maintained majority approval — and even fewer Republicans triumphed in places where he did not. Dan Sena, who ran the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee when Democrats recaptured the majority in 2018, says almost no House Republicans ultimately ran better than Trump’s approval rating in their districts.
如果这些选举趋势在今年11月再次出现，那么民主党的胜势将会更加明显。民调显示，在两党竞争最为激烈的参议院选举中，大多数选民都对特朗普的表现表示不满；即使在特朗普在2024年以高票优势获胜的州（如俄亥俄州、爱荷华州、阿拉斯加州和德克萨斯州），他的支持率也已经飙升至55%或更高。
If those dynamics repeat this November, the Democratic wave will reach towering heights. Public polling shows that most voters disapprove of Trump’s performance in every state where the two parties are most seriously contesting a Senate race; his disapproval rating has spiked toaround 55% or more even in states he carried by double digits in 2024, including Ohio, Iowa, Alaska, and Texas.
那么，为什么在所有这些对特朗普不利的民意调查结果面前，民主党在那些反对特朗普的选民中的支持率仍然无法达到他们在特朗普第一任期时的水平呢？最近由《纽约时报》、锡耶纳学院（Siena College）和马凯特法学院（Marquette Law School）联合进行的全国性民意调查，以及NBC电视台进行的民意调查都显示：在众议院选举中，民主党仅获得了82%至83%的反对特朗普选民的支持——这一比例与其他总统的第一任期相比更为接近历史平均水平，远低于特朗普第一任期时的高支持率。
So why, amid all this ominous polling for Trump, are Democrats not yet matching their first-term results among his disapprovers? Recent national New York Times/Siena College, Marquette Law School and NBC polls all found Democrats winning just 82-83% of Trump disapprovers in the House ballot — closer to the historic numbers for other presidents than the elevated levels seen in Trump 1.0.
同样，在北卡罗来纳州、爱荷华州、俄亥俄州、新罕布什尔州和密歇根州进行的参议院选举民意调查中也显示，民主党仅获得了约80%的反对特朗普选民的支持；在缅因州，特洛伊·杰克逊（Troy Jackson）在上周的《纽约时报》/锡耶纳学院联合民意调查中仅获得了69%的支持率（不过也有其他民意调查显示杰克逊在这些州的表现稍好一些）。
And recent Senate polls in North Carolina, Iowa, Ohio, New Hampshire and Michigan have likewise found Democrats winning only about 80% of voters who disapprove of Trump, with Troy Jackson in Maine attracting a meager 69% of them in last week’s NYT/Siena poll there. (Some other polls have shown Jackson doing better with them.)
其中一个原因是：现在反对特朗普的选民中包括了更多倾向于共和党的选民，尽管他们对特朗普感到失望，但仍不愿投票给民主党。另一个原因可能是民主党的形象比特朗普第一任期时更为弱化。
One reason is that Trump-disapprovers now include more Republican-leaning voters, who remain resistant to voting for the other party despite their disappointment in the president. Democrats may also be lagging because their party’s image is weaker than in Trump’s first term.
不过，共和党要想继续在那些反对特朗普的选民中保持优势也并非易事；最近的一些参议院选举民意调查显示，在乔治亚州、阿拉斯加州和德克萨斯州，民主党在反对特朗普的选民中的支持率已经接近他们在特朗普第一任期时的水平。由于对特朗普的不满情绪如此高涨，民主党即使在无法像特朗普第一任期那样吸引那么多失望的选民的情况下，仍然有可能在大多数地方获胜。
Still, Republicans won’t find it easy to hold onto more Trump-disapprovers than during his first term; some recent Senate polls already show Democrats approaching their first-term numbers with his disapprovers in Georgia, Alaska and Texas. And because Trump’s disapproval is so high, Democrats can win in most places even without attracting as many disenchanted voters as in his first term.
“在每一项民调、每一场竞选中，犹豫不决的选民……目前都是保守派的特朗普批评者，”民主党策略师皮特·詹格雷科说。“他们中有些人会捏着鼻子投共和党；有些人会捏着鼻子投民主党。但我敢打赌，其中很大一部分人干脆待在家里。”过去几周，更多共和党候选人纷纷在伊朗战争、移民执法、燃油价格和关税问题上与特朗普切割。
“In every poll, in every race, the undecided…are conservative Trump critics at this point,” says Democratic strategist Pete Giangreco. “Some of them will hold their nose and vote Republican; some of them will hold their nose and vote Democrat. But I bet a big chunk of them just stay home.”In the past few weeks, more Republican candidates have rushed to break from Trump on the Iran War, immigration enforcement, fuel prices, and tariffs.
但即便出现了这些反抗的微光，几乎所有共和党人在特朗普第二任期内都把自己与他绑得比第一任期时更紧。如果特朗普无法在未来五周内恢复过来，对他失望的选民很可能也会让其中许多人一同沉没——无论他们事后多么拼命地试图从残骸中划走。
But even with these flickers of defiance, almost all Republicans have lashed themselves to Trump in his second term even more tightly than during his first. If Trump can’t recover over the next five weeks, the voters disillusioned with him will likely doom many of them too — no matter how hard they belatedly try to paddle from the wreckage.
鉴于对总统的态度如今在多大程度上塑造中期选举，大规模逆历史潮流而行已成为共和党在2026年最好的机会。
Given how much attitudes toward the president now shape mid-term elections, defying history on a mass scale has become the GOP’s best chance in 2026.
联系本文
To contact the author of this story: at rbrownstein1@bloomberg.net