一项2500万美元的黑人选民外联计划。一次在《早餐俱乐部》节目上的采访。在休斯敦的一所传统黑人大学——得克萨斯南方大学举办筹款活动。
A $25 million Black voter outreach initiative. An interview on “The Breakfast Club.”Hosting a fundraiser at Texas Southern University, an HBCU in Houston.
得克萨斯州众议员詹姆斯·塔拉里科正试图在得克萨斯州270万黑人选民中争取支持，他力争成为30多年来首位在得州全州选举中胜出的民主党人。
Texas state Rep. James Talarico is attempting to gain ground with Texas’ 2.7 million Black voters as he seeks to become the first Democrat elected statewide in Texas in more than three decades.
但一些策略师和当地议员认为，塔拉里科做得还不够——这一批评自初选以来就一直困扰着他——而且黑人选民的热情不足，可能成为他下周能否击败共和党候选人、州总检察长肯·帕克斯顿的关键。
But some strategists and local lawmakers think Talarico is falling short — criticism that has plagued him since the primary — and that an enthusiasm gap from Black voters could make the difference on whether he is able to beat state Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican candidate, next week.
“从实际花费来看，怎么看都不像是2500万美元。……他确实需要投入更多，确实需要，”民主党州众议员约兰达·琼斯说。她代表休斯敦一个以黑人为主的选区，并已表态支持塔拉里科。
“What I’m seeing with what is spent doesn’t look or feel anything like $25 million at all. … He really does need to give more, he really does,” said Democratic state Rep. Jolanda Jones, who serves in a predominantly Black district in Houston and endorsed Talarico. Polling has found Talarico leading Paxton among Black voters — but some Democrats are worried that not enough enthusiasm from Black voters will eat into any overall margin Talarico might have.
民调显示，塔拉里科在黑人选民中领先帕克斯顿——但一些民主党人担心，黑人选民热情不足会侵蚀塔拉里科可能拥有的总体优势。
“The question is not whether Talarico gets the majority of the Black vote because Talarico is going to get the majority of Black votes,” Jones said.
“问题不在于塔拉里科能否赢得多数黑人选票，因为他会赢得多数黑人选票，”琼斯说。“问题在于会有多少黑人出来投票。”黑人选民对塔拉里科的热情究竟有多高，要等到选举日之后才能见分晓。
“The question is how many Black people are going to show up to vote.”How enthusiastic Black voters are for Talarico won’t be clear until after Election Day. But some surrogates are already criticizing the state representative’s investment in shoring up his support among Black voters as too late.
但一些代理人已经在批评这位州众议员巩固黑人选民支持的投入来得太晚。
“Where he deserves credit is that he did with Latino voters what we’ve been asking the Democratic Party to do with Black voters. He went in early, Day 1. He started engaging Latino voters. He built in infrastructure within his campaign run by Latinos to develop strategy to engage Latinos,” Ashley Etienne, a former Democratic White House and congressional aide, told The Washington Sun.
“他值得肯定的一点是，他在拉丁裔选民身上所做的，正是我们一直要求民主党在黑人选民身上做的事。他很早就介入了，第一天就开始。他开始接触拉丁裔选民。他在竞选团队内部建立了由拉丁裔运营的基础架构，来制定接触拉丁裔的策略，”前民主党白宫和国会助理阿什利·艾蒂安对《华盛顿太阳报》说。
But Etienne thinks that the campaign should be trying harder to make similar gains among Black Texans.
但埃蒂安认为，竞选团队应当更加努力，在德克萨斯州的黑人选民中取得类似的进展。
Traci Gibson, the first Black chair of the Harris County Democratic Party, said she has been visiting barber shops across the county to talk to Black men, most of whom she said did not recognize Talarico’s name.
哈里斯县民主党主席特拉西·吉布森是首位担任该职务的黑人，她说她一直在全县各地的理发店走访，与黑人男性交谈，她表示，其中大多数人并不认识塔拉里科的名字。
“I think he’s done a few things, maybe once a month in Harris County,” Gibson said.
“我觉得他在哈里斯县可能做过几次活动，也许一个月一次，”吉布森说。“我认为德克萨斯州最大的县应该与黑人选民有更多的接触点，所以我认为还有进一步推进的空间。”在一份声明中，塔拉里科竞选团队强调了他在争取黑人选民方面的努力。
“I would think that the largest county in Texas would get more touch points with Black voters, so I think there is room for additional pushes.”In a statement, the Talarico campaign highlighted his Black voter outreach efforts. “Texas deserves a senator that will fight for Black Texans,” said JT Ennis, a spokesperson for the Talarico campaign.
“塔拉里科竞选团队发言人JT·恩尼斯说：“德克萨斯州理应拥有一位为黑人德州人而战的参议员。这就是为什么詹姆斯反对种族主义的重划选区地图，支持历史黑人大学（HBCU）经费，并支持投资黑人拥有的企业、增加融资渠道、以及向黑人社区提供住房所有权补助的项目。”针对琼斯的具体情况，塔拉里科竞选团队指引《太阳报》关注琼斯本月早些时候接受当地媒体采访的情况，在采访中她重申了对塔拉里科的背书，并表示对他的宣布投资感到满意。《太阳报》对她的采访是在几天之后进行的。
“It’s why James stands up to racist redistricting maps, champions HBCU funding, and supports programs that invest in Black owned businesses, increase access to capital, and provide home ownership grants to Black communities.”
或许，塔拉里科在黑人选民中可能表现不佳的最明显迹象，是美国众议员贾丝明·克罗克特缺乏公开的竞选露面。这位广受欢迎的黑人民主党人在参议员初选中败给了塔拉里科。黑人选民在该初选中压倒性地支持她，此后她已背书塔拉里科。
In response to Jones specifically, the Talarico campaign pointed The Sun to an interview she gave local media earlier this month, in which she reiterated her endorsement for Talarico and said she was pleased with his announced investment. The Sun’s interview with her took place several days later. Perhaps the clearest sign that Talarico may be falling short with Black voters is the lack of a public campaign presence from U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a popular Black Democrat who lost the Senate primary to Talarico.
但她明显缺席他的活动，这招致一些观察人士的批评，他们认为她应该陪同他在关键社区进行竞选走访。
Black voters overwhelmingly backed her in that contest, and she has since endorsed him.
CNN主播劳拉·科茨在8月的节目中追问克罗克特为何不与塔拉里科一起竞选——克罗克特多次回避了这个问题。
But she has been noticeably absent from his events, which has led to criticism from some observers who believe she should join him in key neighborhoods on the trail.
克罗克特针对她未参与竞选活动的批评进行了反驳，认为塔拉里科专注于争取因经济问题而愤怒的共和党选民，而非争取黑人选民。
CNN anchor Laura Coates pressed Crockett on her show in August about why she wouldn’t campaign with Talarico — Crockett dodged the question repeatedly.
“我们有着两种完全不同的理念，”克罗克特对《太阳报》表示，并指出其他全国性的黑人代言人，如前副总统卡马拉·哈里斯和参议员拉斐尔·沃诺克（民主党-佐治亚州），迄今也未与塔拉里科同台竞选。“他的理念不是‘我们已有足够的民主党人，只需动员那些没人关注的疏离群体’。他的理念是：‘我要去争取共和党人。’”
Crockett has pushed back against criticism related to her absence on the campaign, arguing Talarico is focused on flipping Republicans angry over the economy rather than courting Black voters. “We had two completely different philosophies,” Crockett told The Sun, noting that other national Black surrogates like former Vice President Kamala Harris and Sen. Rafael Warnock (D-Georgia) have yet to campaign with Talarico.
在今夏接受《The Grio》采访时，塔拉里科曾向克罗克特发出公开邀请，邀请她同台竞选。克罗克特告诉《太阳报》，她拒绝了在一次大会上发言的邀请，除此之外，塔拉里科并未直接邀请她加入竞选行程。
“His philosophy wasn’t, ‘We’ve got enough Democrats. We just got to turn out these disaffected kind of folks that nobody ever talks to.’ His philosophy was: ‘I’m going to go get Republicans.’”During an interview with The Grio this summer, Talarico extended an open invitation to Crockett to campaign with him.
“我去我被邀请的地方，”她说。“我们没有被邀请。” 塔拉里科竞选团队在被问及是否邀请这位议员加入时未予置评。
She told The Sun that she rejected an invitation to speak at a convention and that he has otherwise not directly asked her to join him on the campaign trail. “I go where I’m asked to be,” she said. “We have not been asked.”
许多民主党人认为，她在基本盘中的声望有助于塔拉里科赢过这一关键投票群体。
The Talarico campaign did not comment when asked if it had invited the lawmaker to join him.
“她已成为黑人选民真正信任的传播者，”得克萨斯组织项目执行主任布里安娜·布朗表示，该组织的政治行动委员会在初选中背书了克罗克特。“我认为这有助于让不认识塔拉里科、但认识贾斯敏的社区认可塔拉里科。” 但初选竞争十分激烈，导致克罗克特与塔拉里科的关系变得紧张，赛后关系也未明显改善——一些克罗克特的支持者抨击塔拉里科对得克萨斯州黑人社区支持不力，并对他们支持的候选人落选表示不满。
Many Democrats believe her popularity with the base could help Talarico win over the crucial voting bloc. “She has become a really trusted messenger with Black voters,” said Brianna Brown, executive director of the Texas Organizing Project, whose PAC endorsed Crockett in the primary. “I think that it could help credentialize Talarico in the community that don’t know him, that do know Jasmine.”
民主党州众议员罗恩·雷诺兹是一名黑人议员，他在初选中支持克罗克特，但在塔拉里科赢得提名后转而支持他。雷诺兹说，初选结束后，失望的克罗克特选民中曾涌起一些余怒，他也承受了其中一部分。他说，初选一个月后，他和塔拉里科在休斯敦第三区的一家灵魂美食餐厅用餐时，一些选民走到雷诺兹面前，痛斥他支持一个白人，称他是“叛徒”。
But the primary was so contentious that the relationship between Crockett and Talarico grew uneasy and things didn’t improve much afterwards — some Crockett supporters bashed Talarico for not doing enough to support Black communities in Texas and voiced frustration over their candidate’s loss. Democratic state Rep. Ron Reynolds, a Black lawmaker who endorsed Crockett in the primary but backed Talarico after he won the nomination, said he faced some of the residual anger that bubbled among disappointed Crockett voters afterward. A month after the primary, he said he and Talarico were dining at a soul food restaurant in Houston’s Third Ward when some voters came up to Reynolds to lambast him for supporting a white man, calling him a “sellout.”
这位州众议员说，这些情绪后来已经平息，尤其是因为塔拉里科坦然承受了所有批评，开展了一场“几乎无懈可击的竞选”。
Those sentiments have since calmed down, the state representative said, particularly because Talarico has taken all the criticism on the chin to run an “almost flawless campaign.”
“有些场合里，人们……非常支持克罗克特，他们对他（塔拉里科）的竞选抱有敌意，比如会说，‘我们应该跳过这场选举，我们应该少投票，’”雷诺兹说。“我认为在那场初选之后，他已经取得了很大进展，赢得了非裔美国选民的支持。”其他人也赞扬塔拉里科为联系黑人选民所做的外联工作。
“There were some environments where people were … very much pro-Crockett, and they had animus towards his campaign, like, ‘We should skip the race, we should undervote,’” Reynolds said. “I think he’s come a long way on the heels of that primary to win over African American voters.”Others also praise the outreach Talarico has done to connect with Black voters.
“他是个非凡的候选人，贾斯敏也是。我在初选中忙着自己的竞选，所以没有参与其他任何竞选，”来自得克萨斯州的黑人民主党众议员克里斯蒂安·梅内菲通过短信告诉《太阳报》。“我在初选期间告诉两位参议院候选人，一旦我的初选结束，我就会在普选中全力支持民主党提名人。初选第二天我就和詹姆斯谈过，开始行动起来。”“塔拉里科去过教堂、俱乐部，以及两者之间的各个地方。”
“He’s a phenomenal candidate, as was Jasmine. I was running my own race in the primary, so I wasn’t involved in any other races,” Rep. Christian Menefee, a Black Democrat from Texas, told The Sun over text. “I told both senate candidates during the primary that as soon as my primary was over, I was going to be all in for the Dem Nominee in the general. I spoke with James the day after the primary to get going.”“Talarico has been at the church, the club, and everywhere in between.”