1992年，詹姆斯·卡维尔的那句著名口号——“问题出在经济上，蠢货！”（“It’s the economy, stupid”）用四个简短的词语概括了那些本需要政治学家用400字才能解释的道理：当家庭预算紧张时，选民往往会选择更换政党来掌管国家事务。
In 1992, James Carville’s famous refrain — “It’s the economy, stupid” — compressed into four words what it might have taken a political scientist 400 words to explain: When family budgets feel tight, voters often go shopping for a new party to run things.
因此，随着2026年中期选举的临近，对于像我这样的民意调查专家来说，认为选举结果将取决于我们脆弱的经济状况和高昂的生活成本，这其实并不是什么新鲜见解。可以说，正是这些与民众生活息息相关的问题让唐纳德·特朗普成功连任了总统：2024年的多项民意调查显示，经济问题是选民最关心的问题，而且特朗普在“谁更有能力应对经济问题”这一议题上明显占据优势。
So as we approach the 2026 midterm elections, it’s hardly a unique insight for a pollster like me to say the election will hinge on the issues of our fragile economy and the high cost of living. Arguably, pocketbook issues led Donald Trump back to the White House for a second term: Poll after poll in 2024 showed the economy as the top issue and tended to show him with a significant advantage on who was more trusted to handle it.
然而如今，特朗普总统和共和党人在应对生活成本问题上已经处于劣势——他们的支持率落后了8个百分点。此外，今年在我的民意调查中，另一个问题也开始逐渐凸显出来：这个问题虽然排在生活成本之后，但重要性却超过了其他议题。这个问题就是“腐败”。
Today, President Trump and Republicans haven’t merely lost that advantage; they’re underwater on the cost-of-living issue by an eight-point margin. And this year a second issue has been rising in my polling, ranking below the cost of living but ahead of other concerns. It’s not just the economy: “It’s the corruption,” too.
选民们认为经济政策并没有为他们带来实际利益，反而越来越偏向那些与国家领导人关系密切的少数精英阶层。这两种担忧的叠加，让特朗普和共和党人在选举前夕陷入了极其不利的境地。
Voters don’t think the economy is working for them, and they think it’s being rigged more and more in favor of a precious few who are cozied up to our nation’s leaders. The combination of these two worries is putting Mr. Trump and Republicans in a terrible position on the eve of an election.
这种负面情绪也在逐渐侵蚀特朗普多年来精心打造的“成功形象”。
It’s also eating away at the winning brand that Mr. Trump cultivated over many years.
2016年，盖洛普曾询问共和党人为什么认为特朗普有吸引力，其中有六分之一的人提到了他的商业背景。这得益于他多年以来作为房地产大亨以及《学徒》（The Apprentice）节目主持人的公众形象。当时，人们认为特朗普是一个“局外人”——因为他从未担任过公职，显然也不受共和党传统势力的欢迎。尽管如此，他的“局外人”形象依然非常鲜明；即使在就职六年后的2023年，仍有近七成的共和党人认为他是“局外人”。
When Gallup asked Republicans back in 2016 what made Mr. Trump appealing, one in six alluded to his experience as a businessman. This was a product of his years in the public eye as a real estate mogul and as the star of “The Apprentice.”The top response? Mr. Trump was an “outsider.”A decade ago, that branding was understandable: He had never held elected office and was quite obviously not beloved by the G.O.P. establishment. His brand was so strong that in 2023, more than six years after he first took the oath of office, he was still considered an “outsider” by nearly seven in 10 Republicans.
他的部分选民开始怀疑这些说法是否仍然成立。罗伯特就是其中之一——他是德克萨斯州那些倾向于投票给特朗普的选民之一。在最近一次《纽约时报》举办的舆论调查小组讨论会上（我担任了主持人），他这样说道：“过去，你总以为共和党人会愿意在经济问题上提供帮助；但现在看来，只有那些社会上层人士或特定的朋友才能从经济利益中获益，而普通民众却无法从中受益。”
Some of his voters are wondering if that’s still true. Robert, one of the Trump-voting Texas swing voters in a recent Times Opinion focus group for which I was a moderator, put it this way: “You used to think that you could count on the Republicans to be able to help out with the economy.”Now, he said, it feels as if “it’s going to be the top class or the certain friends that are getting the benefit of the economy, not the general folks.”
在我的民意调查中，近三分之二的选民认为“大多数政客都是腐败的，或者只是为了自己的利益而行事”。用特朗普曾经很喜欢的一句话来说，选民们认为华盛顿的政治体系已经变得腐败不堪，亟需进行彻底的改革。当比尔·克林顿总统被指控用入住林肯卧室的机会换取政治献金时，共和党人义愤填膺；而当亨特·拜登在其父亲担任副总统期间拥有不正当的收入来源时，他们也强烈抗议。
In my own polling, nearly two-thirds of voters say “most politicians are corrupt or just looking out for their own interest.”To borrow a phrase Mr. Trump used to be particularly fond of, voters think there’s a swamp that needs a lot of draining. Republicans howled, rightly, when President Bill Clinton was alleged to have traded stays in the Lincoln Bedroom for campaign contributions. They raised hell over Hunter Biden’s unseemly income streams during his father’s vice presidency.
多年来，特朗普一直利用他的支持者们将他视为一个独特的、具有领袖魅力的角色——一个愿意暂时放弃自己奢华的生活、只为整顿混乱的华盛顿政局的“企业家”。然而如今，选民们看到的却是关于加密货币骗局、莫名其妙的赦免决定，以及总统家族及其亲信不断积累的巨额财富的负面新闻。因此，他们中的一些人开始重新审视自己的看法了。
For years, Mr. Trump got a lot of mileage out of his supporters thinking of him as a singular figure — a tycoon who put his glitzy life on hold in order to fix a broken Washington. Today, they see headlines about memecoin scams, inexplicable pardons and the enormous wealth that the president’s family and close associates are accumulating, and some of them are beginning to draw a different conclusion.
如果美国人认为特朗普先生确实专注于改善经济状况，只是暂时还没有足够的时间来取得成果，那倒也情有可原。有时候，选民会因为候选人的努力而给予他们一定的认可：在我的2012年研究中，我发现尽管年轻选民对奥巴马总统的经济表现评价不高，但他们仍然认可他的“努力”。2025年1月，我问选民们特朗普在第二个任期内应该重点关注哪些问题，他们明确表示希望看到政府采取措施降低生活成本并加强边境安全。
It would be one thing if Americans thought Mr. Trump were focused on fixing the economy and just hadn’t had enough time to deliver results. Sometimes voters give points for effort: In 2012, my research on young voters found that though they felt President Barack Obama’s economic record was lackluster, they still gave him credit for “trying.”In January 2025, I asked voters what they hoped Mr. Trump would focus on in his second term, and they were clear that they wanted to see efforts to lower the cost of living and secure the border.
到了2025年11月，超过七成的受访者认为特朗普确实非常重视边境安全问题；但只有43%的受访者认为他将降低生活成本作为自己的首要任务。如今，这一比例下降到了40%，甚至低于那些认为特朗普将建造白宫宴会厅或翻新林肯纪念池等项目作为优先事项的受访者比例。即使在共和党选民中，也只有六成的人认为他将降低生活成本作为首要任务。
By November 2025, more than seven in 10 said he had given a lot of attention to the latter, but only 43 percent said he had made reducing the cost of living one of his highest priorities. Today, that figure is down to four in 10, fewer than the number who think he has prioritized projects such as building a White House ballroom or renovating the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Even among Republican voters, only six in 10 think he has made the cost of living a top priority.
特朗普的许多支持者抱怨他沉迷于一些个人喜好或面子工程（比如给建筑物和水域重新命名）。正如我的另一位焦点小组参与者帕姆所说：“在我看来，这些行为纯粹是浪费时间；他应该把精力放在美国当前面临的问题上，以及人们正在经历的困境上。”对于任何在任的领导人来说，如果经济政策让民众感到被忽视，这本身就已经是一个政治上的问题了；但如果再加上那些华而不实、徒增虚荣的项目，那就构成了一个极其危险的政治隐患。
Many of Mr. Trump’s supporters grumble that he’s out chasing pet projects and feeding his ego, busy renaming buildings and bodies of water. As Pam, another of my focus-group participants, put it: “Those things to me are a waste, instead of spending time on what’s going on here in the U.S. and the fact that people are struggling.”On its own, an economy that feels like it is leaving people behind would be a political problem for any incumbent. But add to it the gold leaf and vanity projects, and you wind up with a politically perilous one-two punch.
过去十年里，一些一直支持特朗普先生的人似乎正逐渐意识到，他们投票选出的这位“局外人”商人，不过又是个典型的政客。尽管肯定有不少对特朗普感到失望的选民不敢把票投给民主党人，但如果他们觉得己方表现糟糕，也没有任何保证他们会愿意在选举日出门投票。到了十一月，这部分群体是共和党人绝不能失去的联盟组成部分。
Some of the people who’ve believed in Mr. Trump over the past decade seem to be coming to the conclusion that the outsider businessman they voted for is just another typical politician. And while there are surely plenty of disillusioned Trump voters who wouldn’t dare cast a ballot for a Democrat, there’s no guarantee that they’ll bother to turn out on Election Day if they feel their own side is behaving poorly. Come November, that’s a slice of their coalition that Republicans can’t afford to lose.
克里斯汀·索尔蒂斯·安德森是《自拍投票：千禧一代如何引领美国（以及共和党如何跟上）》一书的作者。《纽约时报》致力于刊登多元化的读者来信。我们想听听您对此文或我们任何文章的看法。以下是一些建议。我们的电子邮箱是：letters@nytimes.com。
Kristen Soltis Anderson is the author of “The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (and How Republicans Can Keep Up).”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.
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