共和党策略师卡尔·罗夫表示，他认为德克萨斯州总检察长肯·帕克斯顿（共和党人）如果不同意与民主党对手詹姆斯·塔拉里科进行辩论，他的参议院竞选将会失败。
Republican strategist Karl Rove said he believes Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) will lose his bid for Senate if he does not agree to a debate with his Democratic opponent, state Rep. James Talarico.
“如果他不参加辩论，我认为他肯定会输，”罗夫在周三于芝加哥经济俱乐部与民主党策略师大卫·阿克塞尔罗德共同出席的活动上说道，“但如果他参加了辩论，问题就在于他是否能够主动发起攻势。”
“If he doesn’t debate, I think he loses,” Rove said in a Wednesday appearance at The Economic Club of Chicago alongside Democratic strategist David Axelrod. “If he debates, the question is, is he going to be able to go on the offense?”
阿克塞尔罗德对罗夫的观点回应道：“他16年来都没有参加辩论，这是有原因的——他确实不够机敏、不够善于应对辩论。”
Axelrod weighed in on Rove’s assertion, saying, “There’s a reason he hasn’t debated in 16 years. He’s not adroit.”
罗夫（曾任乔治·W·布什政府的高层助手）回应说：“在这种场合，其实并不需要特别机敏或善于应对；关键在于他是否有勇气参加辩论。”
“You don’t need to be adroit in this,” Rove, a former top White House aide to the George W. Bush administration, responded. “The question is, does he have the guts to do it?”
罗夫进一步分析道：“如果他在辩论中只是说‘你们可以随便说我那些负面的事情……但我已经通过了州参议院的审查，我也明白你们为什么只谈论这些负面的事情而不讨论其他问题’，那他的辩论就毫无意义了。”罗夫提到的塔拉里科可能会在辩论中提到的“负面内容”，实际上指的是帕克斯顿在2023年面临的弹劾案：州众议员曾投票决定以腐败罪名起诉帕克斯顿，但后来他在州参议院的审判中被宣告无罪。
The Republican strategist continued, “Because he goes into the debate and says, ‘You can say all those negative things about me … but I was cleared by the state Senate but I understand why you want to talk about that cause you don’t talk about [other issues].'”Rove’s comment on the “negative things” Talarico would say about Paxton in a hypothetical debate was a reference to the Texas attorney general’s 2023 impeachment.
“我不知道他是否有足够的政治勇气去说‘我的未来取决于我能否在辩论中胜出’，”罗夫总结道。
State representatives voted to indict Paxton on corruption charges, but he was later acquitted in the Texas Senate.
塔拉里科多次批评帕克斯顿拒绝与自己进行辩论；上周他在CBS的采访中甚至公开挑战帕克斯顿参加福克斯新闻的辩论。
“I don’t know if he’s got the political moxie to say, ‘My future depends on me getting into a debate and coming out the winner,’” Rove concluded.
尽管特朗普总统在每次竞选中都赢得了德克萨斯州的选票，但在9月份的一项福克斯新闻民意调查中，帕克斯顿的支持率仍落后于塔拉里科2个百分点。这项调查的误差范围为3个百分点，这意味着两人的支持率差距其实非常接近。
Talarico has repeatedly bashed Paxton for not appearing in debates with him — notably challenging his Republican opponent to a Fox News debate during an interview last week on CBS. Despite President Trump carrying the Lone Star State in each of his presidential bids, Paxton trailed Talarico by 2 points in a September Fox News poll.
这项民意调查进一步凸显了两位候选人之间在选民支持率上的巨大差距：塔拉里科获得了8分的净（即支持率高于反对率8分），而帕克斯顿的支持率则低了18分（即反对率高于支持率18分）。
The Democrat’s lead was within the survey’s 3-point margin of error. The poll found an even wider gap in likely voters’ favorability ratings of the two candidates, with Talarico earning an 8-point net positive rating, while Paxton came in at 18 points underwater.
在这周访问德克萨斯州和俄克拉荷马州期间，这位总统还称自己所支持的帕克斯顿为“一个麻烦人物”，并承认这位德克萨斯州的总检察长“颇具争议”。不过他也表示，在自己遭受激进左翼势力强烈攻击时，帕克斯顿是“所有支持者中最为坚定的”。特朗普访问德克萨斯州的时间，恰逢《纽约时报》获得了帕克斯顿的录音片段——在录音中帕克斯顿表示特朗普在达拉斯举行的共和党中期选举大会“损害了我们的支持率”。
The president also called Paxton, whom he has endorsed, “a pain in the a—” during his stops this week in Texas and Oklahoma, acknowledging the Lone Star State’s attorney general is “a little controversial.”Though he added that the GOP Senate candidate “was at my side more than anybody” when he “was being hit by the radical left very hard.”Trump’s visit to Texas came shortly after The New York Times obtained an audio clip in which Paxton said the president’s GOP midterm convention in Dallas “dropped our numbers.”
帕克斯顿的一位高级顾问称这份报道是“经过篡改的胡言乱语”。在共和党中期选举大会上，特朗普虽然表示自己不喜欢帕克斯顿的穿着方式、说话方式或外貌，但仍称这位参议院候选人“是美国最出色的总检察长”。
A senior Paxton adviser called the report “manipulated nonsense.”During the midterm convention, the president said he doesn’t “like the way Ken [Paxton] dresses,” “talks” or “looks” but called the Senate hopeful “the greatest” attorney general in the country.