黑人选民——尤其是在南方各州——正以远超以往中期选举的速度投下提前选票，在选举日前一周为民主党提供了一批可靠的潜在支持者。
Black voters — especially in southern states — are casting early ballots at a pace well ahead of previous midterm elections, giving Democrats a reservoir of likely support a week before Election Day.
投票权倡导者表示，对共和党试图将黑人选民划入新的国会选区进行“杰利蝾螈”式划分的反弹，正在助推提前投票和缺席投票的激增。
Voting rights advocates say a backlash against Republican attempts to gerrymander Black voters into new congressional districts is helping to drive the surge in early and absentee voting.
在两个将种族作为选民登记记录一部分的州，黑人选民投出的选票在提前投票中所占比例高于上一届中期选举周期。与2022年同期相比，北卡罗来纳州黑人选民投出的选票增加了63%。在佐治亚州，这一数字增长了15%，而白人选民投出的选票则下降了3%。
In two states that track race as part of voter registration records, ballots cast by Black voters are a larger share of the early vote than in the previous midterm cycle. Ballots cast by Black voters in North Carolina are up 63% from the same point in 2022. In Georgia, they’re up 15%, while ballots from White voters are down 3%.
佛罗里达大学选举实验室的迈克尔·麦克唐纳表示，佛罗里达州黑人选民使用现场提前投票的比率是2022年的两倍。根据路易斯安那州州务卿的数据，提前投票开始一周以来，路易斯安那州黑人选民投出的提前选票已超过2022年全年的总量——而白人选民的提前投票则持平。“表现不太突出的群体是白人，”麦克唐纳说。
Black voters in Florida are using in-person early voting at twice the rate as they did in 2022, said Michael McDonald of the University of Florida Election Lab. And a week into early voting in Louisiana, Black voters have already cast more early votes than they did in all of 2022 — while early voting by White voters is flat, according to data from the Louisiana Secretary of State. “The group that is not really shining through are Whites,” McDonald said.
如果这些趋势持续下去，黑人选民可能会助推民主党在投票率上占据优势，从而决定整个南方从北卡罗来纳州到得克萨斯州的竞争性国会选战。甚至南卡罗来纳州和密西西比州——这两个几十年来一直是共和党的可靠票仓——也出现了异常激烈的参议院竞选。这种地理分布并非巧合。
If those trends hold, Black voters could fuel a Democratic turnout advantage that could decide competitive congressional races throughout the South, from North Carolina to Texas. Even South Carolina and Mississippi — two reliably Republican states for decades — have unusually competitive Senate races. That geography is not a coincidence.
在唐纳德·特朗普总统的敦促下，并得益于最高法院4月作出的废除《投票权法案》部分条款的裁决，共和党控制的南方各州立法机构一直在重新绘制政治版图。
At the urging of President Donald Trump and enabled by a Supreme Court decision in April striking down parts of the Voting Rights Act, Republican-controlled state legislatures have been redrawing political maps across the South.
其公开目的在于增加安全的共和党选区数量，以保护共和党在美国众议院中微弱的多数优势。但这样做意味着拆分往往以黑人为主或由黑人众议员代表的民主党选区。
The stated purpose was to increase the number of safe Republican districts in order to protect a razor-thin Republican majority in the US House of Representatives. But doing so means breaking up Democratic districts that are often majority Black or represented by Black House members.
“我认为人们认识到，这些选区地图的划定方式不仅关乎界线和人口统计，更关乎政治权力，”来自密西西比州的投票权律师兼政治策略师、公平斗争行动组织南方各州主任阿米尔·巴达特表示。“这就是为什么你现在看到如此高的选民投票率。”今年早些时候在密西西比州举行的“通往南方之路”游行是该州自20世纪60年代以来最大规模的投票权抗议活动之一。民权团体、工会和盟友挤满了州议会大厦，试图阻止——或至少拖延——新地图的出台。
“I think people recognize that the way these maps are drawn is not just about lines and demographics, but it’s about political power,” said Amir Badat, a voting rights attorney and political strategist from Mississippi who is southern states director for Fair Fight Action. “That’s why you’re seeing such high voter turnout right now.”An “All Roads to the South” march in Mississippi earlier this year was one of the largest voting rights protests in the state since the 1960s. Civil rights groups, labor unions and allies packed state capitols in an effort to stop — or at least slow — new maps.
此外，本月初，数千名大学生——主要来自北卡罗来纳州格林斯伯勒的历史黑人大学——徒步数英里前往吉尔福德县选举委员会投票，以抗议校园内缺乏提前投票点。
And earlier this month, thousands of college students — mostly from historically Black colleges in Greensboro, North Carolina — marched miles to the Guilford County Board of Elections to vote in protest of the lack of early voting sites on campus.
这股行动主义浪潮是在最高法院作出裁决之后兴起的，当时大多数大法官认为，在路易斯安那州设立第二个以黑人为主的选区属于“违宪的种族杰利蝾螈划区”。这种投票率动态呼应了对2022年最高法院在案中作出的裁决的反应，该裁决推翻了长达半个世纪的堕胎权保障。该裁决导致女性登记投票人数在中期选举中激增，并帮助民主党在堕胎权受到威胁的州赢得了新的竞争性席位——尽管在纽约等堕胎权受到更多保护的州，这种效应有所减弱。
The surge in activism followed a Supreme Court ruling in , where the majority of justices said the creation of a second predominantly Black district in Louisiana was an “unconstitutional racial gerrymander.”The turnout dynamic echoes the response to the 2022 Supreme Court decision in , which overturned the abortion rights that had been guaranteed for half a century. The decision led to a surge in women registering to vote in midterm elections and helped Democrats win newly competitive seats in states where abortion rights were threatened — though the effect was blunted in states like New York where those rights were more protected.
“看看卡莱斯案的判决，我认为情况类似，对吧？”民主党数据公司TargetSmart的汤姆·博尼耶说，他是最早记录多布斯案判决后选民登记影响的人之一。他补充道，就像多布斯案判决后的女性一样，黑人选民在其权利受到最大威胁的地方最为振奋。
“When you look at the Callais decision, I think it’s similar, right?” said Tom Bonier of the Democratic data firm TargetSmart, who was among the first to document the post-Dobbs effect on voter registrations. Like women in the aftermath of Dobbs, Black voters are most energized where their rights are most threatened, he added.
本轮重新划分选区的共和党控制的立法机构——全都在南方——更有可能将黑人选民划入新选区。在由民主党绘制选区地图的加利福尼亚州，黑人选民被划走的可能性较小。
Republican legislatures that redistricted this cycle — all in the South — were more likely to move Black voters to new districts. In California, where Democrats drew the maps, Black voters were less likely to move.
“我们能看着这一点说这全都是卡莱斯案的作用吗？不能，当然不能。选民很复杂，去投票时他们脑子里能装下很多事，”博尼耶说。“但我们看到这种情况集中发生在南方各州，这表明卡莱斯案发挥了相当大的作用。”埃默里大学教授、著作《》作者伯纳德·弗拉加说，候选人和竞选活动也很重要。
“Can we look at that and say it’s all about Callais? No, of course not. Voters are complicated and are capable of holding many things in their mind when they go out to vote,” Bonier said. “But the fact that we’re seeing this happen concentrated in southern states would suggest Callais is playing a substantial role.”Candidates and campaigns also matter, said Bernard Fraga, an Emory University professor and author of .
他说：“卡莱斯案激励竞选团队去努力说服黑人选民，他们的选票为何重要，以及候选人为何会努力争取他们的选票。”
“Callais is a stimulus for campaigns to do the work of convincing Black voters of why their vote is important, and why candidates are going to do the work of earning their votes,” he said.
作为这种重要性的一个迹象，前总统巴拉克·奥巴马将于周三在亚特兰大主持一场竞选集会，参议员乔恩·奥索夫和民主党佐治亚州州长候选人凯莎·兰斯·博特姆斯将出席。
In one sign of that importance, former President Barack Obama will headline an Atlanta campaign rally Wednesday with Senator Jon Ossoff and the party’s candidate for Georgia governor, Keisha Lance Bottoms.
特朗普也一直专注于深南部——长期以来一直是共和党可靠的票仓——本月在阿拉巴马州、田纳西州、北卡罗来纳州、南卡罗来纳州、密西西比州和佐治亚州举行集会。他计划周四返回南卡罗来纳州，周五前往佛罗里达州。
Trump, too, has been focused on the Deep South — long a reliable source of Republican votes — with rallies this month in Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi and Georgia. He plans to return to South Carolina Thursday before visiting Florida on Friday.
“特朗普总统是一台拉票机器，他横扫全国的巡回竞选加上对关键竞选的前所未有的投入，以前所未有的方式点燃了选民的热情，”共和党全国委员会发言人埃玛·霍尔说。“民主党除了疯狂的反特朗普发作，什么也拿不出来。”
“President Trump is a turnout machine, and his barnstorm across the country combined with unprecedented investments in key races is firing up voters like never before,” said Republican National Committee spokeswoman Emma Hall. “Democrats have nothing to offer but deranged anti-Trump tantrums.”