尼古拉斯·里卡尔迪，莎拉·兰金 科罗拉多州科罗拉多斯普林斯 — 退休上校路易斯·克里斯滕森走进科罗拉多斯普林斯东北部边缘的一座大房子时，门铃响起了《星条旗永不落》的旋律。这位共和党人、空军服役28年的老兵正在做一件他从未料到自己会做的事 — — 参加一名民主党国会候选人的派对。
NICHOLAS RICCARDI, SARAH RANKIN COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The doorbell chimed “The Star Spangled Banner” as retired Col. Lou Christensen stepped inside the large house on the northeastern edge of Colorado Springs. Theed Republican and 28-year Air Force veteran was doing something he never expected to do — attending a party for a Democratic congressional candidate.
“立法机构需要为特朗普总统设立防护栏，”70岁的克里斯滕森说。“我们需要政府的另一个分支站出来，说，‘呃，老板，那不符合宪法。’”克里斯滕森正在支持杰西卡·基林，她也是一名老兵，以对抗科罗拉多州第五国会选区的首任共和党众议员杰夫·克兰克。该选区是一个保守派堡垒，包含五个军事设施。民主党人在此选区向来前景渺茫，但他们近年来首次在这里投入资金，指望伊朗战争的不受欢迎以及武装力量的动荡能带来更多可竞争的席位，因为该党正在为夺回美国众议院的控制权而努力。
“The legislative branch needs to put up guardrails from President Trump,” said Christensen, 70. “We need another branch of government that stands up and says, ‘Uh, boss, that’s not constitutional.’”Christensen is backing Jessica Killin, a fellow veteran, over first-term Republican Rep. Jeff Crank in Colorado’s 5th Congressional District, a conservative stronghold that includes five military facilities. The district is a longshot for Democrats but they’re investing money here for the first time in years, counting on an unpopular war with Iran and upheaval in the armed forces to put more seats in play as the party pushes for control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
此前曾服役的民主党候选人也在佛罗里达州、南卡罗来纳州和弗吉尼亚州有大量老兵人口的选区参选。
Democratic candidates who previously served in the military are also running in Florida, South Carolina and Virginia districts with significant veteran populations.
尽管老兵持有各种政治信仰，但总体上该群体倾向右翼 — — 据美联社VoteCast调查，两年前近十分之六的人投票支持特朗普。当年特朗普在科罗拉多州第五选区以9个百分点的优势获胜，而根据联邦统计数据，该地区近九分之一的人是老兵，使其成为全国老兵最多的选区之一。该选区驻有北美防空司令部（NORAD）、卡森堡和空军学院。
Although veterans hold all sorts of political beliefs, the population overall leans right — nearly 6 in 10 voted for Trump two years ago, according to AP VoteCast. Trump won Colorado’s 5th by 9 percentage points that year, and nearly one out of every nine people there is a veteran, according to federal statistics, making it one of the most veteran-heavy seats in the country. The district is home to NORAD, Fort Carson and the Air Force Academy.
“我知道房间里有很多退伍军人，所以我不必告诉你们我们在外交政策上的处境，”基林在最近一个周五晚上对超过两打聚集的选民说。“历史上第一次，现在全球社会对中国的评价高于对美国的评价。”在退伍军人人口方面，唯一可比的选区之一是弗吉尼亚州第二国会选区，该选区以弗吉尼亚海滩为中心，同样分布着军事基地，其边界之外就是巨大的诺福克海军基地。
“I know there’s a bunch of veterans in the room, so I don’t have to tell you where we are with foreign policy,” Killin told more than two dozen voters who gathered on a recent Friday evening. “For the first time in history, now the global community thinks more of China than of the United States.”One of the only comparable seats in terms of veteran population is in Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, centered in Virginia Beach and similarly dotted with military bases, with the massive Naval Station Norfolk just outside its boundaries.
与科罗拉多州第五选区不同，弗吉尼亚州第二选区在过去十年里选举结果一直在左右摇摆。民主党人伊莱恩·卢里亚是一名退役海军指挥官，曾部署到中东和西太平洋，在其军旅生涯中指挥过400名水手的一个单位，她在2018年击败了一名共和党现任议员。她连续两届守住该席位，直到2022年被共和党人詹·基格安斯——一名前海军直升机飞行员——击败。
Unlike Colorado’s 5th, elections in Virginia’s 2nd have zig-zagged back and forth over the last decade. Democrat Elaine Luria, a retired Naval Commander who deployed to the Middle East and Western Pacific and led a unit of 400 sailors over the course of her military career, ousted a Republican incumbent in 2018. She held the seat for two terms before Republican Jen Kiggans , a former Navy helicopter pilot, defeated her in 2022 .
如今卢里亚卷土重来，展开 rematch（再赛），她抨击基格安斯和特朗普因伊朗战争而引发的“扩大的经济危机”以及地缘政治失误。在一次采访中，她批评基格安斯投票反对旨在制止未经国会批准的军事行动的决议。
Now Luria is back for a rematch , hammering Kiggans and Trump for the Iran war that she called “an expanding economic crisis” as well as a geopolitical blunder. In an interview, she criticized Kiggans for voting against resolutions intended to halt military action without congressional approval.
基格安斯曾服役十年，期间两次部署到波斯湾，她说她希望这场战争能尽快结束。但她认为卢里亚通过她的批评，“选择了伊朗的一边”。“就像民主党现在站在伊朗一边，而不站在我们军队这边一样，”她在一次采访中说道。
Kiggans, whose 10 years of service included two deployments to the Persian Gulf, said she hopes the war can soon be brought to a close. But she argued that Luria, through her criticism, has “chosen the side of Iran.”“It’s like the Democrats are now siding with the Iranians and not standing with our military,” she said in an interview.
弗吉尼亚海滩的海军退伍军人、退休小学老师保罗·克雷科里安表示，他担心这场战争可能会成为特朗普的“泥潭”。但他仍决定支持基格安斯，因为民主党“已经走向了社会主义”。尽管如此，仍有许多退伍军人正在为卢里亚投提前选票，他们表示这是对特朗普及其政府的不满。
Paul Krekorian, a Navy veteran and retired grade school teacher in Virginia Beach, said he worries the war may become a “quagmire” for Trump. But he still decided to support Kiggans because Democrats “have gone socialist.”Still, plenty of veterans were casting early ballots for Luria, citing their frustration at Trump and his administration.
“我认为我们现在更不安全了，这不仅是因为伊朗的战争，还因为我们的领导层或缺乏领导力，”自称独立人士、退役陆军上校的菲利斯·米哈拉斯说。她将国防部长皮特·赫格塞斯描述为“一个极其无能的人，其自我意识总是妨碍事情。”民主党退伍军人正试图在其他共和党占据的席位选举中提出这一论点。在南卡罗来纳州第一国会选区，民主党人南希·拉科尔（前海军副将）正与共和党律师詹妮弗·哈尼卡特竞选。拉科尔去年被赫格塞斯解雇。
“I think we are less safe, not just because of the war in Iran, but because of the leadership or the lack of leadership we have,” said Phyllis Mihalas, a self-described independent and retired Army lieutenant colonel. She described Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth as “an enormously incompetent man whose ego consistently gets in the way.”Democratic veterans are trying to make that argument in other races for Republican-held seats. In South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, Democrat Nancy Lacore, a former Navy vice admiral, is running against Republican lawyer Jennifer Honeycutt. Lacore was fired by Hegseth last year.
在佛罗里达州第十三国会选区，退役陆军准将莉拉·格雷正在挑战共和党众议员安娜·保利娜·卢纳。而在佛罗里达州第七国会选区，前海军飞行员和NASA首席助理贝尔·道尔顿正在与共和党人、当地新闻主播瑞安·伊利亚竞选。
In Florida’s 13th Congressional District, retired Army Brigadier Gen. Leela Gray is challenging Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna. And in Florida’s 7th Congressional District, Bale Dalton, a former Navy Aviator and NASA chief of staff, is running against Ryan Elijah, a Republican and local news anchor.
在科罗拉多斯普林斯，共和党现任议员克兰克正在担任他的第一个国会任期。尽管他的父亲和岳父都是退伍军人，女婿目前正在陆军服役，但克兰克从未服过兵役。
In Colorado Springs, the Republican incumbent, Crank, is in his first term in Congress. Though his father and father-in-law are veterans and his son-in-law is currently in the Army, Crank has never been in the military.
克兰克曾是一位长期代表该地区的国会议员的助理，之后他管理了保守派组织“美国繁荣促进会”的科罗拉多分会，随后担任前南卡罗来纳州州长尼基·黑利2024年争取共和党总统提名时的科罗拉多州主席。他在角逐这个空缺的国会席位时击败了一位得到特朗普支持的候选人，赢得了共和党初选，这引起了一些特朗普支持者的怀疑，他们质疑他是否会成为总统的团队成员。
A onetime aide to a longtime congressman representing the area, Crank ran the Colorado chapter of the conservative group Americans For Prosperity and then served as Colorado chairman of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. He ran for the open congressional seat against a Trump-backed candidate and won the Republican primary, sparking some suspicion among Trump supporters about whether he’d be a team player for the president.
如今，基林的竞选团队正在播放一则广告，指责克兰克有“100%的时间”投票支持特朗普。在一次采访中，克兰克对这一指控嗤之以鼻，但表示公开与特朗普发生冲突不是他的风格。“我认为总统错了的时候，我会试图去纠正他，”克兰克说，例如特朗普将美国空军司令部从科罗拉多州迁至阿拉巴马州。
Now Killin’s campaign is airing an ad slamming Crank for voting with Trump “100% of the time.”In an interview, Crank scoffed at the charge but said it wasn’t his style to pick public fights with Trump. “I’m going to try to check the president where I think he’s wrong,” Crank said, such as Trump moving U.S. Space Command from Colorado to Alabama.
克兰克说，伊朗战争的首批伤亡者之一驻扎在科罗拉多斯普林斯的卡森堡，通知该士兵父亲的任务落到了他身上。“他基本上对我说，‘不要让它白白牺牲，’”克兰克说。他补充道：“我们不情愿去，但一旦到了那里，就要把任务完成并回家。我认为我选区的人也有这种感觉。”曾任空军学院院长的退役中将迈克·古尔德表示赞同。“我们的总统以他那样的方式对付伊朗，正是正确的做法，”古尔德说，他支持克兰克。
Crank said that one of the first casualties from the Iran war was stationed at Ft. Carson in Colorado Springs, and it fell to him to call the fallen soldier’s father. “He basically said to me, ‘Don’t let it be for nothing,’” Crank said. He added: “We’re reluctant to go, but once we’re there, let’s get the job done and go home. And I think that’s how people in my district feel.”Mike Gould, a retired lieutenant general who once ran the Air Force Academy, agreed. “What our president did, taking on Iran the way he did, was exactly the right thing to do,” said Gould, who supports Crank.
基林在科罗拉多斯普林斯长大，她开玩笑说自己是小学班上唯一的民主党人。她在1990年代末加入陆军，晋升为上尉，在巴尔干战争中服役后加入了USAA——这家公司为军人和退役军人提供保险和银行服务。
Killin grew up in Colorado Springs and quips that she was the lone Democrat in her elementary school class. She joined the Army in the late 1990s and rose to captain, serving in the Balkan war before joining USAA, the company that provides insurance and banking services to members of the military and veterans.
在家庭聚会上，基林说她担心特朗普对国家造成的影响——以及克兰克并未试图阻止这一点。“我成长的时代，国防部是非政治化的，司法部也是非政治化的，”基林说。
At the house party, Killin said she was worried about what Trump had done to the country — and that Crank wasn’t trying to stop it. “I grew up in an era where the Department of Defense was apolitical and the Department of Justice was apolitical,” Killin said.
许多其他退伍军人在这次聚会上也表达了类似担忧。聚会地点位于一名空军退伍军人兼前里根政府官员的住宅，距空军学院仅几英里。一名前陆军游骑兵担心赫格塞斯试图用保守派基督教文化理念渗透军队。一名刚刚退役的退伍军人担心自己如何找到工作。而75岁的前海军陆战队员迈克尔·斯图尔特则坦言自己对伊朗战争的厌恶程度。
It was a theme that many other veterans sounded during the gathering, which was held in the home of an Air Force veteran and former Reagan administration official just a few miles from the Air Force Academy. One former Army Ranger worried about Hegseth’s attempts to infuse the military with conservative Christian cultural ideas. A newly discharged veteran worried about how he’ll find work. And Michael Stewart, a 75-year-old former Marine, made a confession about the level of his disgust over the Iran war.
“这还是第一次，”斯图尔特说，“我希望看到我的国家失败。”排名报道来自弗吉尼亚州弗吉尼亚海滩。
“This is the first time,” Stewart said, “I’ve wanted to see my country lose.”Rankin reported from Virginia Beach, Virginia.