巴西和以色列的选举为重返重要地位提供了一份蓝图。2026年10月27日，在得克萨斯州拉伯克，唐纳德·特朗普总统在拉伯克纪念市民中心举行的竞选集会上发表讲话后走下舞台。| 亚历克斯·布兰登/美联社 亚历山大·伯恩斯是POLITICO北美高级执行编辑。他此前曾任POLITICO新闻主管。十多年来，他一直报道美国各地的选举和政治权力，并与人合著了一本关于唐纳德·特朗普和乔·拜登的畅销书。
Elections in Brazil and Israel offer a blueprint back to relevancy. President Donald Trump walks from the stage after speaking at a campaign rally at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center on Oct. 27, 2026, in Lubbock, Texas. | Alex Brandon/AP Alexander Burns is POLITICO's senior executive editor, North America. He was previously POLITICO's head of news. He has covered elections and political power across the U.S. for over a decade and co-wrote a best-selling book about Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
在某个时刻，也许大约是在乔·拜登在辩论台上宣称他“终于击败了联邦医疗保险”的时候，华盛顿开始认为，在选举中击败一个老人是件容易的事。并非总是如此。
At some point, maybe around the time Joe Biden declared on the debate stage that he “finally beat Medicare,” Washington got the idea that defeating an old man in an election was easy. Not always.
就在一场被许多选民视为削弱一位不受欢迎的80岁总统的机会的美国选举前几天，巴西和以色列的选民发出了一个鲜明的提醒：一个老人能坐上本国最高职位，通常不是靠偶然。
Just days before an American election viewed by many voters as an opportunity to neuter an unpopular 80-year-old president, voters in Brazil and Israel delivered a vivid reminder that an old man in his country’s highest office usually didn’t get there by accident.
在巴西，周日，决定性的多数选民让左翼总统路易斯·伊纳西奥·卢拉·达席尔瓦获得第四个任期，打破了外界关于巴西人已准备把这位火爆的工会主义者当作过时人物抛弃的预期。在以色列周二的选举中，总理本雅明·内塔尼亚胡——该国历史上任职时间最长的总理——失去了议会多数席位，但可能阻止了对手组建一个可行的执政联盟。
In Brazil, a decisive majority of voters on Sunday returned left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva for a fourth term, defying expectations that Brazilians were ready to discard the fiery trade unionist as yesterday’s man. In Israel’s Tuesday election, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — the longest-serving premier in his country’s history — lost his parliamentary majority but may have thwarted his opponents from electing a viable governing coalition.
81岁的卢拉和77岁的内塔尼亚胡除了年龄和政治韧性之外几乎没有共同之处。他们在一代人多的时间里一直屹立于各自国家之上，智胜检察官，羞辱选举对手，激怒也迷住了华盛顿。他们做到这一点，靠的是左右两翼选民的忠诚支持，这些选民以英雄式的眼光看待两人，视他们为自己利益不知疲倦的捍卫者，以及抵御最可怕敌人的盾牌。
Lula, 81, and Netanyahu, 77, have almost nothing in common except their age and political resilience. They have towered over their countries for more than a generation, outfoxed prosecutors and humiliated electoral rivals, enraged and entranced Washington. They have done it with the loyal support of voters on the left and right who view each man in heroic terms, as a tireless champion of their interests and a shield against the most fearsome enemies.
唐纳德·特朗普总统有时也具备这些政治特质。如果他还能再上演一次脱身戏码，那看起来会更像我们刚刚在以色列和巴西看到的情形，而不是特朗普第二任期迄今为止的任何表现。
President Donald Trump has, at times, shared those political traits. If he has one more escape act left in him, it would look more like what we’ve just seen in Israel and Brazil than anything in Trump’s second term so far.
自2025年重返白宫以来，特朗普未能拿出大多数选民能在自身生活中感受到的政策胜利，同时还抛弃了塑造其民粹主义基本盘的政治身份中一些最重要的部分。他在2024年竞选总统时承诺遏制通胀，并痛斥不必要的对外战争。特朗普本任期的标志性举措——通过《一项大而美的法案》、发动全球贸易战、试图在伊朗实现政权更迭——却让医疗、消费品和能源变得更加昂贵。
Since returning to office in 2025, Trump has failed to deliver policy victories that most voters can feel in their own lives, while shedding some of the most important parts of the political identity that forged his populist base. He ran for president in 2024 pledging to whip inflation and railing against needless foreign wars. Trump’s signature acts this term — passing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, waging a global trade war, attempting regime change in Iran — have made health care, consumer goods and energy more expensive.
他在中期选举中的收尾信息是什么？特朗普始终如一地提出一个论点：民主党人是疯子。但在一系列竞选巡回演讲的独白中，你很难找到一条令人信服的主线——这些独白吹嘘经济、将个别民主党候选人斥为怪人和颠覆分子、遐想着给海洋改名、为芝士蛋糕工厂辩护，还赞叹乔恩·赫斯特德那岩石般坚硬的体格。
What is his closing message in the midterm election? Trump makes one argument consistently: that Democrats are crazy. But you’d be hard-pressed to find a convincing through line in a series of campaign-trail monologues boasting about the economy, trashing individual Democratic candidates as weirdos and subversives, musing about renaming oceans, defending the Cheesecake Factory and admiring Jon Husted’s rock-hard bod.
相比之下，巴西和以色列的选民听到的则是：对卢拉和内塔尼亚胡数十年来构建的政治联盟进行持续、无情、毫无羞耻的诉求。
Compare this to what voters heard in Brazil and Israel: relentless, ruthless, shameless appeals to the political coalitions that Lula and Netanyahu forged over decades.
在巴西，卢拉利用了定义其选举生涯的地区和阶级分歧，同时向基本盘选民端出一整套新的经济承诺。他提高了福利金，向选民承诺周末免费公共交通，并支持缩短工作周。他45岁的对手弗拉维奥·博索纳罗在最后几天失足，发表了一句轻蔑言论，暗指卢拉年轻时做金属工人时遭遇的一起事故——这番话显然被许多选民视为对工人阶级的无端嘲讽。
In Brazil, Lula tapped into the regional and class-based divisions that have defined his electoral career, while offering a buffet of new economic promises to voters in his base. He hiked welfare payments, promised voters free public transit on weekends and endorsed a shorter workweek. His 45-year-old opponent, Flavio Bolsonaro, stumbled in the final days with a dismissive comment alluding to an accident Lula suffered as a young metalworker — a remark apparently taken by many voters as a gratuitous sneer at the working class.
在内塔尼亚胡为政治生存而战的过程中，这位以色列领导人发出了末日般的讯息，旨在让选民两极分化，从而对自己有利。他发布了一张AI生成的特拉维夫遭核打击的图片，将挑战者标榜为对伊朗软弱，并嘲讽阿拉伯政党是内部敌人。以色列和美国新闻媒体报道称，内塔尼亚胡在选举前推动军方对伊朗发动新一轮攻击，这一升级行动本可能重塑竞选活动的最后几天。
In Netanyahu’s fight for political survival, the Israeli leader delivered an apocalyptic message aimed at polarizing the electorate to his advantage. He posted an AI-generated image of a nuclear strike on Tel Aviv, branded his challengers as soft on Iran and derided Arab political parties as an enemy within. Israeli and American news outlets have reported that Netanyahu pushed the military for a new wave of attacks on Iran before the election, an escalation that might have reshaped the campaign’s final days.
如果特朗普以卢拉或内塔尼亚胡那样的专注和精力来应对中期选举，他可能仍然是一个非常不受欢迎的总统。但他可能是一个牢牢掌控着控制参议院的红州的非常不受欢迎的总统，而不是在10月手忙脚乱地保卫堪萨斯州和密西西比州。
If Trump had approached the midterms with Lula- or Netanyahu-like focus and vigor, he would probably still be a very unpopular president. But he might be a very unpopular president with a firm grip on the red states that control the Senate, instead of scrambling in October to defend Kansas and Mississippi.
特朗普的民粹主义竞选策略相比之下显得草率仓促，对选民的真实需求反应迟钝。他提出如果共和党保住国会控制权，就向美国人发放5000美元的支票，结果却看到自己党内的议员批评这一想法会耗尽预算。他发放了针对地方量身定制的好处——为阿拉斯加的一条管道承诺新资金，作为给缅因州的礼物给予关税豁免——这些可能在边缘上产生影响，但无法替代关于生活成本的全国性讯息。
Trump’s populist campaign tactics have been comparatively slapdash and unresponsive to voters’ real needs. He floated giving away $5,000 checks to Americans if Republicans keep control of Congress, only to see lawmakers from his own party pan the idea as a budget buster. He has handed out locally tailored goodies — new funding pledges for a pipeline in Alaska, tariff exemptions as a gift to Maine — that might make a difference on the margins but can’t substitute for a national message on the cost of living.
而且特朗普没有做出协调一致的努力来弥合MAGA基本盘在伊朗战争问题上的裂痕。他在类似比比（内塔尼亚胡）式的关于南加州遭核攻击的警告和战争将在11月选举后结束的保证之间来回摇摆，而与此同时，对于把他推上台的人来说，燃料价格仍然高得令人痛苦。
And Trump has not made a concerted effort to heal the breach within the MAGA base over the war in Iran. He has toggled between Bibi-like warnings about nuclear attacks on Southern California and assurances that the war will end after the November election, all while fuel prices stay painfully high for the people who put him in office.
对于这个在过去11年半里席卷美国政坛的人来说，这或许构成了有史以来最无效的竞选。然而，中期选举并不是故事的结局。
It may add up to the least effective campaign ever for the man who has overwhelmed American politics for 11 and a half years. And yet, the midterms are not the end of the story.
即便共和党下周遭遇一场大范围失败，特朗普也还有半个任期可以施展。他还有两年时间重整旗鼓、回归政治基本面、重新联系自己的基本盘，并为重获影响力和政治复苏而战斗、战斗、再战斗。如果他认真对待挽救自己的总统任期，他手头还有一整套可用的手段。
Even a broad defeat for Republicans next week would leave Trump with half a term to work with. Two more years to recover his footing, return to political basics, reconnect with his base and fight, fight, fight for relevance and recovery. There is a bag of tricks available to him, if he were to get serious about salvaging his presidency.
对特朗普的对手而言，来自国外的警告依然有效：当心那个急于求成的老人。
For Trump’s opponents, the warning from abroad remains: Beware the old man in a hurry.