“密歇根州是美利坚合众国最重要的选举，”副总统JD·万斯周二下午在密歇根州豪厄尔的集会上表示。
“Michigan is the most important election in the United States of America,” Vice President JD Vance said at a rally in Howell, Michigan, on Tuesday afternoon.
在这座被称为“密歇根州三K党之都”的城镇，万斯发表了带有偏见的中期选举竞选言论。他的言论呼应了唐纳德·特朗普前一天的伊斯兰恐惧症言论，当时特朗普称密歇根州参议员候选人阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德为“圣战分子”，并宣称选举他将意味着如此多的恐怖主义，“甚至连圣诞节都过不了”。万斯在随后的集会前记者围采中声称，埃尔-赛义德兜售“反白人种族仇恨”，并辩称如果埃尔-赛义德当选，美国城市将出现与本月法国抗议活动同等规模的抗议。
In a town known as the “KKK capital of Michigan,” Vance delivered a bigoted midterms sales pitch. His words echoed Donald Trump’s Islamophobia from the day prior, when Trump called Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed a “jihadist” and argued that electing him would mean so much terrorism “you cannot even have Christmas.”Vance, in his followup, claimed at a pre-rally press gaggle that El-Sayed traffics in “anti-white racial hate,” and argued that if El-Sayed is elected, American cities will see protests on the scale of those in France this month.
“巴黎的毁灭景象可能远隔重洋，但请问问自己：它们真的难以想象会在美国发生吗？”万斯说。
“The scenes of destruction in Paris may be an ocean away, but ask yourselves: are they really so hard to imagine here in the United States of America?”Vance said.
“我向你们保证，如果那些暴徒烧毁纽约或底特律，哈桑·皮克尔和埃尔-赛义德们会就在现场带头并欢呼喝采。因为我们在法国看到的——仇恨、忘恩负义、毁灭的欲望而非建设的欲望……正是这种完全相同的癌症大规模地腐蚀了阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德。”
“And I guarantee you, if those rioters were burning down New York or Detroit, the Hasan Pikers and the El-Sayeds would be right there leading them and cheering them on. Because what we saw in France—the hatred, the ingratitude, the desire to destroy rather than the desire to build…that exact same cancer is what has corrupted Abdul El-Sayed writ large.”
相比之下，他说，共和党候选人迈克·罗杰斯——一个曾对埃尔-赛义德发表过自己伊斯兰恐惧症言论的人——将“在过去18个月巨大势头的基础上进一步建设。”过去一个月，密歇根州选民被焦虑的共和党日益激进的信息淹没。原因显而易见：两年后，特朗普以1.4个百分点的优势赢得该州，该党在下周二的中期选举中面临在该州失去参众两院席位的严重风险。
By contrast, he said, Republican candidate Mike Rogers—a man who has engaged in his own Islamophobic rhetoric against El-Sayed—would “further build upon the great momentum of the last 18 months.”Michigan voters have been inundated with increasingly aggressive messaging from an anxious Republican Party over the past month. It’s easy to see why: two years after Trump carried the state by 1.4 percentage points, the party faces a serious risk of losing both Senate and House seats in the state in next Tuesday’s midterms.
其中一个战场是密歇根州第七国会选区，万斯周二为共和党现任众议员汤姆·巴雷特助选。巴雷特于2024年当选，面临进步派民主党人威尔·劳伦斯的强力挑战。但万斯几乎未提及当地选情，仅三次提到候选人名字——一次仅将其描述为“爱国者”，将保卫边境；另外两次甚至完全未加描述。他对巴雷特的从政履历几乎只字未提。尽管他长篇大论地谈论哈桑·皮克尔——后者并未竞选任何公职——却一次也未提及巴雷特的实际对手劳伦斯。
One of those battlegrounds is Michigan’s seventh congressional district, where Vance stumped for Republican incumbent Rep. Tom Barrett on Tuesday. Barrett, who won office in 2024, faces a strong challenge from progressive Democrat Will Lawrence. But Vance barely mentioned the local race, saying the candidate’s name exactly thrice—once describing him simply as “a patriot” who would secure the border, and twice not describing him at all. He said almost nothing about Barrett’s record. And though he spoke at length about Hasan Piker, who is not running for any elected office, he did not name Lawrence, Barrett’s actual opponent, once.
取而代之的是，万斯自由联想般地谈起自己少年踢橄榄球的日子，“支持警察、向犯罪宣战”，特朗普治下的燃料开采与制造业，以及“令我最引以为豪的事情之一，是我们终结了DEI（多元、公平与包容）和种族歧视在工作与大学中的暴政”。万斯在密歇根竞选途中的言辞几乎不涉及相关选战，也不涉及他表面上支持的候选人，但共和党资金正源源不断涌入巴雷特所在选区。
Instead, Vance free-associated about his peewee football days, “backing the blue and waging war on criminals,” fuel extraction and manufacturing under Trump, and how “one of the things I’m proudest of is that we ended the tyranny of DEI and racial discrimination in jobs and universities.”While Vance’s rhetoric around the Michigan campaign trail barely addresses the races in question, or the candidates he’s ostensibly supporting, Republican money is pouring into Barrett’s district.
据分析机构AdImpact统计，第七选区大选广告总支出已超4700万美元，使该选战成为本周期三大最昂贵中期选举竞逐之一，另外两个分别是北卡罗来纳州第一选区和佛罗里达州第二十五选区。
Total ad spending in the seventh district has topped $47 million in the general election according to the analytics firm AdImpact. That makes this race one of the three most expensive midterm contests this cycle, alongside North Carolina’s first district and Florida’s 25th district.
特朗普旗下的政治行动委员会（PAC）主导了这轮轰炸。总统于9月成立的“安全与可负担PAC”已预订630万美元当地广告时段，投放至选举日，以助巴雷特在对阵劳伦斯时保持竞争力；后者凭借民粹主义、反数据中心平台，在近期民调中一度领先多达八个百分点。
Trump’s own PACs are leading the blitz. The president’s “Safety and Affordability PAC,” launched in September, has reserved $6.3 million in local airtime through election day to help keep Barrett afloat against Lawrence, who has leveraged a populist, anti-data-center platform to lead by as much as eight points in recent polling.