进入选举日，众议院共和党人极有可能失去多数党地位，这已不是什么秘密。民主党仅需净增少数几个席位，所有现有证据表明这不会成问题。
Headed into Election Day, it’s not exactly a secret that House Republicans are likely to lose their majority. Democrats only need a net gain of a handful of seats, and all of the available evidence suggests that won’t be a problem.
然而，众议院议长迈克·约翰逊（Mike Johnson）却不断质疑这些证据。
House Speaker Mike Johnson, however, keeps taking issue with the evidence.
“共和党人不再回应民调，”这位共和党领袖周末在福克斯新闻（Fox News）上表示。他补充道：“我告诉你们，这些民调都有偏差——所有的民调。”周一晚，这位路易斯安那州众议员再次登上该网络，推出了实质上相同的论调。“我告诉你们，民调是不准确的，”众议院议长说道。
“Republicans are no longer responding to polls,” the GOP leader told Fox News over the weekend. He added, “I’m telling you these polls are off — all of them.”On Monday night, the Louisiana congressman returned to the network and pushed effectively the same line. “I’m telling you the polling is inaccurate,” the House speaker said.
也许如此。也许约翰逊是对的——我们大概都能想到民调或多或少出现偏差的例子——下周政治界可能会迎来一个巨大的惊喜。
Maybe so. Maybe Johnson’s right — we can probably all think of instances when polls have been off to one degree or another — and it could be the political world is in for an enormous surprise next week.
但如果真发生这种情况，共和党人自己也会是那些感到震惊的人之一。
But if that to happen, Republicans themselves would be among those who are shocked.
从竞选策略和战术角度来看，我能理解为什么约翰逊如此热情地推销这种说法。毕竟，他是国会最高级别的共和党议员。如果他公开接受关于公众态度的现有数据，众议院议长实际上就得承认他保住议长木槌的几率很小，这绝不会激励本党的普通选民去投票。
As a matter of campaign strategy and tactics, I can appreciate why Johnson is pushing this line with so much enthusiasm. He is, after all, Congress’ top GOP lawmaker. If he were openly accepting the available data on public attitudes, the House speaker would effectively have to admit the odds of him holding onto his gavel are poor, which wouldn’t exactly motivate his party’s rank-and-file voters to cast a ballot.
但无论约翰逊的动机如何，甚至他自己的党内人士也并不真心相信他的这套说辞。我们之所以确定这一点，是因为共和党人不断调动竞选资金以保护脆弱的共和党现任议员——这不是基于恳求和轶事证据，而是基于他们自己的民调数据。
But regardless of Johnson’s motivations, even his own party doesn’t genuinely believe his talking point. We know this for certain because Republicans keep moving campaign money around to protect vulnerable GOP incumbents — not based on pleas and anecdotal evidence, but because of their own polling data.
特朗普的竞选行程也是如此。总统并非因为觉得得克萨斯州、南卡罗来纳州、密西西比州和堪萨斯州——他两年前在这些州以巨大优势获胜——此时的当地环境宜人，才投入时间前往这些州。白宫政治运作机构正根据民调数据安排特朗普出行，尽管约翰逊坚称共和党人“不再根据民调行事”。当然，他们是根据民调行事的。在做出艰难的选举决策时，他们别无他用。
The same is true for Donald Trump’s campaign schedule. The president hasn’t invested his time in states like Texas, South Carolina, Mississippi and Kansas — states he won by enormous margins two years ago — because he finds local conditions pleasant this time of year. The White House political operation is deploying Trump in response to polling data, even as Johnson insists that Republicans “are no longer responding to polls.”Of course they are. There’s nothing else for them to use when making difficult electoral decisions.