“如果您认可我的领导，希望我继续以毫不尴尬的方式在国内外事务中担任您的代言人，我诚恳地恳请您通过将参议院和众议院都交还给民主党多数派，明确无误地表达您的意愿。”这是伍德罗·威尔逊总统在1918年中期选举前的十月下旬对选民的呼吁。当时他正在谈判德国在第一次世界大战中的投降，于是他警告说：“此刻既不是分歧建议的时候，也不是分裂领导的时候。”
“If you have approved of my leadership and wish me to continue to be your unembarrassed spokesman in affairs at home and abroad, I earnestly beg that you will express yourself unmistakably to that effect by returning a Democratic majority to both the Senate and the House of Representatives.”Such was President Woodrow Wilson’s appeal to voters in late October ahead of the 1918 midterms. He was in the midst of negotiating Germany’s surrender in the Great War, so he warned, “This is no time either for divided counsel or for divided leadership.”
威尔逊的呼吁完全适得其反，共和党夺取了两院的控制权。根据威尔逊传记作者约翰·米尔顿·库珀 Jr.的说法，威尔逊政府的两位高级官员曾表示：“如果威尔逊只是闭嘴不言，民主党本来就会赢得胜利。”这可能夸大了威尔逊言论的影响。库珀指出，“高物价、战争期间的短缺以及种种不便都对总统所在的党不利。”（听起来耳熟吗？）但威尔逊肯定没有帮上忙，而且很可能也没有能力帮上忙。
Wilson’s plea backfired completely, and Republicans seized control of both chambers. According to Wilson biographer John Milton Cooper, Jr., two of Wilson’s top administration officials said “Democrats would have won if Wilson had just kept his mouth shut.”That may have overstated the impact of Wilson’s statement. Cooper noted that “high prices, wartime shortages, and myriad inconveniences worked against the president’s party.” (Sound familiar?) But Wilson certainly didn’t help matters and probably had no capacity to help matters.
自威尔逊以来，许多总统在中期选举期间徒劳地奔走竞选，只为暴露他们权力的局限。1986年10月，罗纳德·里根在共和党失去八个参议院席位和上院控制权之前，将其高工作支持率带到了14个州。贝拉克·奥巴马的工作支持率曾降至50%以下，他在2010年进行了类似的巡回演讲，但未能阻止63个由民主党占据的众议院席位的流失以及对下院控制权的丧失。
Since Wilson, many presidents have futilely campaigned during the midterm election only to expose the limits of their power. In October 1986, Ronald Reagan brought his high job approval ratings to 14 states before his Republicans lost eight Senate seats and control of the upper chamber. Barack Obama, whose job approval had dipped below 50 percent, embarked on a similar tour in 2010 but failed to prevent the loss of 63 Democratic-held House seats and control of the lower chamber.
2018年10月和11月，唐纳德·特朗普的工作支持率一直不佳，他在15个州举办了23场集会，最终导致共和党失去41个众议院席位以及议长的权杖。
In October and November 2018, Donald Trump, whose job approval has always been bad, held 23 rallies in 15 states on the way to losing 41 House seats and the Speaker’s gavel.
尽管有这样的惨痛历史，迄今为止，总统几乎整个10月都在路上奔波。特朗普10月1日至20日的日程包括在13个州举行15场集会。在这次巡回演讲之前，他还在得克萨斯州达拉斯市出席了史无前例的共和党全国中期代表大会，并发表了两场黄金时段演讲。
Despite this sad history, so far the president has spent almost all of October on the road. Trump’s schedule October 1-20 includes 15 rallies in 13 states. Preceding this tour was an unprecedented Republican National Midterm Convention in Dallas, Texas, where he delivered two primetime addresses.
特朗普的行程安排和言辞完全是为了激发其忠实支持者的投票热情，而非说服摇摆选民。这并非全无逻辑；在中期选举中，总统所属政党往往面临基本盘投票率下降的问题。但总统的“霸权讲台”并非速效良药。1986年令里根尴尬的中期选举，投票率为美国历史上第三低。2010年，奥巴马的青年支持者大多选择在家不投票，此前一个面向年轻选民的电视市政厅会议在10月中旬举行，会上尖锐的提问和防守性的回答令局面尴尬。
Trump’s travel itinerary and rhetoric are squarely aimed at juicing turnout among his loyalists, not at persuading swing voters. This is not totally without logic; in midterm elections the president’s party often suffers a decline in base turnout. But the presidential bully pulpit does not provide a quick fix. The 1986 midterm that embarrassed Reagan featured the third-lowest turnout in American history. Many in Obama’s youth brigade stayed home in 2010 after a mid-October televised town hall geared to younger voters was marked by pointed questions and defensive answers.
埃默里大学政治学教授艾伦·I·阿布拉莫维茨研究了特朗普2018年的竞选攻势后得出结论：“特朗普的竞选集会似乎对参议院竞选结果的影响微乎其微。少数共和党候选人表现优于‘基本面’预期，但也有其他人表现不及预期。”总统所属政党在中期选举中表现尚可、仅失去少量席位甚至小幅获席的例子是有的，但那些情况通常涉及一位拥有高工作支持率的总统，如1998年比尔·克林顿领导的民主党，或2002年乔治·W·布什领导的共和党。
Researching the effects of Trump’s 2018 campaign blitz, Alan I. Abramowitz, an Emory University political science professor, concluded, “Trump’s campaign rallies appear to have had a minimal impact on the outcomes of Senate contests. A few Republican candidates did better than expected based on ‘fundamentals,’ but others did worse than expected.”There are examples of respectable performances by a president’s party in a midterm, with either minimal seat losses or even small gains, but those circumstances usually involve a president with high job approval ratings such as Bill Clinton’s Democrats in 1998 or George W. Bush’s Republicans in 2002. (Clinton, facing a House impeachment inquiry in October 1998, largely stayed off campaign stages, but First Lady Hillary Clinton spoke at a whopping 60 rallies that year.)
（1998年10月克林顿面临众议院弹劾调查，基本未登上竞选舞台，但第一夫人希拉里·克林顿那年却在多达60场集会上发言。）我们有一个不受欢迎的总统在中期竞选中发挥建设性作用的例子——常被诟病的乔·拜登。据美国国家公共电台报道，2022年拜登的竞选活动“明显低调”。10月中旬的西海岸之行“没有集会，只有面向小规模受众的关于其迄今成就的演讲，以及几场筹款活动”。
We have one example of an unpopular president playing a constructive midterm campaign role—the oft-maligned Joe Biden. In 2022, Biden’s campaign trail activity, according to NPR, was “decidedly low key.”A mid-October West Coast tour had “no rallies, just small audience speeches about his accomplishments thus far, and a couple of fundraisers.”
拜登对其党内民主党人的最大贡献，不是与候选人同台亮相，而是在大选季首尾发表的两场演讲，界定了此次选举的利害攸关。
Biden’s greatest contribution to his Democrats was not appearances with candidates, but two speeches bookending the general election season that framed the stakes.
2021年1月6日特朗普发动未遂政变的记忆犹新，最高法院推翻“罗诉韦德案”对女性造成的实质性影响也历历在目，拜登于9月1日在费城独立宫发表演说。他敦促各党派选民反对“MAGA共和党人”，称他们正在发动一场“对民主的攻击”，并“决心让这个国家倒退——倒退到一个没有选择权、没有隐私权、没有避孕权、没有与所爱之人结婚权利的美国。”
A September 1 address at Independence Hall in Philadelphia was delivered with memories of Trump’s still-fresh attempted coup on January 6, 2021, and the tangible impact on women of the Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe v. Wade. Biden urged voters of all political stripes to oppose “MAGA Republicans” who were waging an “assault on democracy” and were “determined to take this country backwards—backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.”
随后，拜登于11月2日在华盛顿特区联合车站发表演说，距离众议院议长南希·佩洛西的丈夫在家中遭袭击、颅骨骨折仅过去几天，特朗普对此还发出嘲笑声。拜登将袭击者与闯入佩洛西众议院办公室大肆破坏的1月6日暴徒联系起来，并因众多否认选举结果者参选，四次强调“民主在选票上”。在中期选举前几个月，失控的通胀重创美国人的银行账户和拜登的工作支持率。
Then a November 2 address in Washington, D.C.’s Union Station was delivered a few days after Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband was attacked in their home and suffered a skull fracture, prompting chuckles from Trump. Biden tied the attacker to the January 6 rioters who trashed Pelosi’s House office and, with so many election deniers running for office, underscored four times that “democracy is on the ballot.”In the months preceding the midterm, American bank accounts and Biden’s job approval had been savaged by runaway inflation.
一位不受欢迎的总统能成功将选民注意力从典型的经济担忧上转移开，这极不寻常。但他正确识别并提升了其他激发选民热情的议题。
For an unpopular president to help successfully shift voter attention away from the typical economic concerns is highly unusual. But he correctly identified and elevated other issues that were animating voters.
特朗普试图在10月的集会上做类似的事，将民主党定义为“激进左翼笨蛋共产党人”，声称他们将“掠夺你的财富，将你的税收增加5万亿美元，毁灭你的边境”，并推行“对你们孩子的跨性别残害”。但特朗普的信誉已破产，此前他承诺降低物价，随后却故意做相反的事。
Trump is trying to do something similar in his October rallies, by defining Democrats as “radical left Dummocrat communists” who will “loot your wealth, raise your taxes by $5 trillion, annihilate your borders” and push “transgender mutilization of your children.”But Trump’s credibility is shot after promising to lower prices, then deliberately doing the opposite.
此外，四年前拜登警告选票上将出现一大批否认选举结果者，这一预判准确。如今，选票上只有极少数民主党人与美国民主社会主义者有关联，在最激烈争夺的竞选中甚至更少。特朗普可利用的素材少得多。
Plus, Biden was accurate four years ago when he warned about an army of election deniers on the ballot. Today, only a smattering of Democrats on the ballot have ties to the Democratic Socialists of America, and even fewer in the most hotly contested races. Trump simply has less to work with.
共和党若想避免在“蓝色浪潮”中溃败，最需要的或许是几天没有唐纳德·特朗普制造新闻的日子，但这位总统对人群和镜头过于沉迷，绝不会让这种情况发生。
What Republicans could use to try to avoid being drowned in a Blue Wave is a few days without Donald Trump making news, but the president is too addicted to the crowds and the cameras to ever let that happen.