本周早些时候，在北卡罗来纳州格林维尔市举行的一场集会上，唐纳德·特朗普总统承认：“民主党人罗伊·库珀将会成为你们的参议员，这简直太不可思议了。”这对库珀的共和党对手来说尤其尴尬。作为北卡罗来纳州共和党的领袖，迈克尔·沃特利曾极力讨好特朗普，最终得以成为共和党全国委员会的主席。然而，库珀这位深受民众喜爱的前州长兼司法部长在民意调查中始终领先于沃特利——他目前的领先优势超过了10个百分点。
Earlier this week, during a rally in Greenville, North Carolina, President Donald Trump admitted that Democrat Roy Cooper is “going to become your senator and it’s crazy.”It was especially embarrassing for Cooper’s Republican opponent. As chair of the North Carolina GOP, Michael Whatley ingratiated himself with Trump to such an extent that Trump made him chair of the Republican National Committee. But Cooper, a popular former governor and attorney general, has consistently led Whatley in the polls. His current average lead is more than 10 points.
在大西洋沿岸的乔治亚州，共和党人也正在经历一场激烈的参议院选举竞争。民主党参议员乔恩·奥索夫正在轻松赢得这场选举，他的对手是迈克·柯林斯——一位极端“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）派的保守派议员，因其与白人民族主义者的女婿有密切关系而受到批评。
Just down the Atlantic coast, Georgia Republicans are also reeling in their Senate contest. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., is running away with the race against Rep. Mike Collins, an ultra-MAGA conservative who has come under fire for his ties to his white nationalist influencer son-in-law.
不过，这两场参议院选举只是北卡罗来纳州和乔治亚州共和党所面临更大问题的缩影：在特朗普执政的时代，这两个州的共和党势力已经大幅削弱。
The two Senate contests, though, are just portents of much bigger problems facing North Carolina and Georgia Republicans — two state parties hollowed out in the age of Trump.
大约十年前，北卡罗来纳州的共和党还处于强势地位。2008年该州投票支持巴拉克·奥巴马后，共和党人在州众议院议长汤姆·蒂利斯的带领下，于2010年首次控制了该州的立法机构；2012年，选民们选举了共和党人帕特·麦克罗里担任州长，并赋予他否决立法权的权力；2014年，蒂利斯还击败了民主党参议员凯·黑根。
Just over a decade ago, North Carolina Republicans were riding high. After the state voted for Barack Obama in 2008, Republicans, led in part by state House Speaker Thom Tillis, took control of both legislative chambers in 2010 for the first time since 1898. In 2012, voters elected Republican Gov. Pat McCrory with a veto-proof legislature.
尽管麦克罗里在2016年的州长选举中以微弱差距输给了库珀，但特朗普仍以近4%的得票率赢得了该州的选举。此后几年里，共和党在该州仍保持着主导地位，直到2024年特朗普支持当时的副州长马克·罗宾逊作为共和党的州长候选人。
In 2014, Tillis defeated Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan. Though McCrory narrowly lost the governorship in 2016 to Cooper, Trump won the state by nearly 4%. The state GOP largely maintained its grip in the years following until 2024, when Trump backed then-Lt.
民主党候选人乔什·斯坦以近15个百分点的优势击败了罗宾逊。罗宾逊曾发表过煽动性言论；即使在特朗普赢得该州选举的情况下，他依然坚持这些言论。选举临近尾声时，CNN报道称：罗宾逊“在十多年前曾在一个色情网站的论坛上发表过一系列煽动性言论，其中他自称‘黑纳粹’，并表示支持恢复奴隶制”。罗宾逊否认自己写过这些言论，但由于斯坦的巨大优势，共和党最终失去了副州长职位。与此同时，民主党则赢得了州检察长职位、州立法机构的绝对多数席位以及州最高法院的一个席位。
Gov. Mark Robinson as the party’s nominee for governor. Democrat Josh Stein would win the race by almost 15 points against Robinson, who had a history of inflammatory remarks even as Trump won the state. Late in the race, CNN reported that Robinson “made a series of inflammatory comments on a pornography website’s message board more than a decade ago, in which he referred to himself as a ‘black NAZI!’ and expressed support for reinstating slavery.”Robinson denied writing the messages, but thanks to Stein’s margin of victory, Republicans lost the lieutenant governorship while Democrats held the attorney general’s race, their legislative supermajority and a seat on the state supreme court.
特朗普与蒂利斯的冲突也导致了蒂利斯的辞职——两人因特朗普提出的“One Big Beautiful Bill”法案中的医疗补助削减政策而产生分歧。在 midterm（中期选举）年份，蒂利斯本就面临巨大压力；而特朗普将蒂利斯赶下台，并用自己的亲信替换了他，进一步加剧了共和党的困境。
And Trump’s clash with Tillis forced the latter into retirement after they split over the Medicaid cuts in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. Tillis likely would have struggled in a midterm year. But Trump booting him and filling the state party with loyalists made matters worse.
在乔治亚州，共和党的命运同样令人堪忧。共和党在该州的统治始于2002年，当时罗伊·巴恩斯败给了索尼·珀杜，成为重建时期后的首位共和党州长。此后，州参议院的席位也发生了变化（多数议员转投了共和党）。2004年，共和党还赢得了州众议院的控制权。从那以后，乔治亚州一直由共和党人担任州长（最近一位州长是布莱恩·肯普）。
The state GOP’s reversal of fortune is almost as bad in Georgia. The Republican takeover of Georgia began in 2002 when Roy Barnes lost to Sonny Perdue to become the first Republican governor of Georgia since Reconstruction. The state senate also flipped thanks to multiple party switches. In 2004, Republicans would win the state house. Georgia has elected Republican governors, most recently Brian Kemp, ever since. Trump endorsed Kemp in 2018.
2018年特朗普曾公开支持肯普；但后来由于肯普拒绝协助推翻2020年的选举结果（当时乔·拜登赢得了该州的选举），特朗普转而反对他。尽管肯普在2022年成功连任（且没有得到特朗普的支持），但特朗普对前橄榄球运动员赫尔谢尔·沃克的支持反而帮助民主党参议员拉斐尔·沃诺克成功连任。
But Trump turned against Kemp, who now enjoys a 70% approval rating, after he refused to help overturn the 2020 election results, when Joe Biden won the state. While Kemp easily won re-election in 2022 without Trump’s help, the latter’s endorsement of former football player Herschel Walker led to Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock winning re-election.
今年，总统明显偏袒柯林斯，而忽视了那些得到肯普支持的竞争对手。无论如何，佐治亚州的共和党人今年都可能面临困境——这主要是由于来自其他州的移民潮，尤其是非裔美国人和受过大学教育的白人居民的迁移。然而，特朗普通过支持那些党内权贵进一步加速了这一趋势。即便是那些忠于党的共和党人，他们的忍耐力也有极限。玛乔丽·泰勒·格林就是一个例子：她曾代表一个极度保守的选区，但在与总统公开发生争执后便辞职了。
And this year, the president boosted Collins over a Kemp-backed rival. Republicans in Georgia would likely be in trouble anyway this year, largely due to migration from other states, particularly from African Americans and suburban college-educated whites. But Trump has accelerated this trend propping up apparatchiks. Even those loyal soldiers have their limits. Look no further than Marjorie Taylor Greene, who represented a deep-red district, only to quit after a public falling out with the president.
事实上，目前在佐治亚州表现最好的共和党候选人其实是里克·杰克逊——这位自费参选的商人击败了特朗普推荐的州长候选人（副州长伯特·琼斯）。杰克逊在民意调查中领先于前亚特兰大市长基莎·兰斯·博顿斯。但如果博顿斯最终获胜，她很可能会控制州议会中的至少一个议院。
In fact, the one Republican statewide candidate doing well in Georgia right now is Rick Jackson, the self-funded businessman who beat Trump’s preferred candidate for governor, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones. Jackson now leads most polls against former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. But if Bottoms somehow wins, she likely will also flip at least one chamber of the Legislature.
如果佐治亚州和北卡罗来纳州的共和党想要了解特朗普政策所带来的负面影响，他们可以看看亚利桑那州的情况。作为1964年共和党总统候选人巴里·戈德华特的故乡，亚利桑那州长期以来一直是保守主义的堡垒。但自那时起，共和党人已经10年没有赢得过参议院席位了；最后一次获胜的是特朗普的政敌约翰·麦凯恩（他在那次选举中成功连任）。
If Georgia and North Carolina’s state Republican parties want to see where Trump-driven hollowing out leads, they can look to Arizona. The home of Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican nominee for president, Arizona was long a bastion of conservatism. But it has been 10 years since a Republican last won a Senate seat, when Trump’s nemesis John McCain was re-elected to his final term.
从那以后，民主党人在所有参议院选举中都取得了胜利。2022年，马克·凯利成功赢得了麦凯恩曾担任的参议院席位；而另一位民主党候选人凯蒂·霍布斯也在州长选举中以微弱优势击败了否认选举结果的候选人卡里·莱克。莱克曾公然表示“麦凯恩支持的共和党人应该滚出去”，但她最终也落败了——她的对手正是那些得到特朗普支持的、主张极端保守主义理念的人（他们后来分别成为了国务卿和司法部长）。
Since then, Democrats have won every Senate race. In 2022, the same year Mark Kelly won a full term for McCain’s old seat, fellow Democrat Katie Hobbs narrowly won by beating election denier Kari Lake in the gubernatorial race. Lake had famously said McCain Republicans should “get the hell out,” but she would be joined in defeat by Trump-endorsed ideologues for secretary of state and attorney general.
2024年，即使特朗普在该州获胜，莱克竞选参议员的尝试仍以败给鲁本·加列戈告终。如今，霍布斯面对的是众议员安迪·比格斯，后者曾试图挑战2020年大选结果，并获得了特朗普的背书。民调显示霍布斯大幅领先比格斯。此外，民主党有望翻转多达三个由共和党把持的众议院席位，并可能首次在60年里同时控制州议会两院。
In 2024, even as Trump won the state, Lake’s campaign for a Senate seat ended in defeat to Ruben Gallego. Now, Hobbs is facing Rep. Andy Biggs, who tried to challenge the 2020 election results and who has Trump’s endorsement. Polling shows Hobbs beating Biggs decisively. In addition, Democrats have a good chance of flipping up to three Republican-controlled House seats and potentially both houses of the state Legislature for the first time in 60 years.
在过去十年里，特朗普展现了非凡的生存和赢得选举能力，但在这些曾经的共和党大本营里，他的追随者们却在下层选票上接连失利。这两种现象有关联：特朗普将一个致力于选出志同道合者的共和党，变成了一个只为支持他个人而存在的政党。在此过程中，该党失去了自我拯救的能力。
While Trump, over the past decade, has displayed a remarkable ability to survive and win elections, his acolytes in these former GOP strongholds are losing down the ballot. These two phenomena are connected: Trump has turned the Republican Party that cares about electing like-minded individuals into a party meant to support him, and him alone. In doing so, it has lost its ability to save itself.