投票分析人士表示，选举日的希望现在取决于共和党能够说服多少独立选民。
Election Day hopes now rest with how many independents the GOP can persuade, voting analysts say.
休斯敦——长期支持特朗普的斯特凡·伯恩斯令人惊讶地成为了共和党领袖们担忧的选民。
HOUSTON — Longtime Trump supporter Stefan Burns is surprisingly the voter Republican leaders worry about.
伯恩斯是一名反堕胎的基督徒，多年来一直信奉“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）议程，他说在这次选举中——这是近代史上竞争最激烈、至关重要的中期选举——他不会投票。
tiabortion Christian who believed in the MAGA agenda for years, Burns said that in this election, the most competitive and consequential midterm in recent history, he’s not voting.
34岁的伯恩斯是休斯敦远郊的一名建筑项目工程师和木匠，周五（得克萨斯州提前投票的最后一天）他在一家商场的美食广场吃午饭时说：“共和党已经失去了与基层的联系。”
“The Republican Party has lost touch with the base,” Burns, 34, a construction project engineer and carpenter in the Houston exurbs, said during his lunch break at a mall food court on Friday, the last day of early voting in Texas.
他说：“从道德上讲，我无法按党派立场投票。因为尽管堕胎是我的主要议题，但它并不是唯一的议题。到了这个时候，我想你可以称我为良心拒服兵役者。”由于总统唐纳德·特朗普的不受欢迎、战争、数据中心以及高昂的汽油和杂货价格，共和党议员们正在全国范围内面临热情差距。这种政治余波在得克萨斯州最为明显，特朗普上个月在那里举行了共和党的中期会议，并于本月多次访问该州以争取支持。
“Morally speaking, I cannot vote down a party line. Because although abortion is my main issue, it’s not the only one,” he said. “At this point, I guess you could call me a conscientious objector.”Republican lawmakers are confronting an enthusiasm gap nationally due to the unpopularity of President Donald Trump, wars, data centers, and high gas and grocery prices.
几代人以来，共和党通过赢得农村县以及大多数选民居住的郊区和城市的大幅领先，控制了州政府的所有权力。但根据无党派投票分析师史蒂芬·戴维的数据，早期投票率显示，以总检察长肯·帕克斯顿的对手、州众议员詹姆斯·塔拉里科为首的民主党人正在逆势而上。民主党人在城市地区的投票率有所上升，甚至在保守的农村县也取得了增长。
Nowhere is the fallout more visible than in Texas, where Trump held Republicans’ midterm convention last month and visited several times this month to rally support. Republicans have controlled every lever of state government for generations by winning rural counties and significant margins in suburban and urban areas where most voters live. But early turnout shows Democrats — led by Attorney General Ken Paxton’s opponent, state Rep. James Talarico — doing the reverse.
曾任休斯敦市首席运营官的大卫一直在自己的网站上监测全州提前投票的投票率，并将其与历届选举进行比较。虽然得克萨斯州选民不登记党派，但他们会选择自己想参加的初选。因此，大卫根据这些记录推断出党派归属，绘制了一张用颜色编码的地图，显示出在传统上深红色的得州帕汉德尔、东部和西部地区出现了大片蓝色。在休斯敦北部的蒙哥马利县等地——那里的共和党官员在疫情期间拒绝了全州范围内的封城——民主党人的投票人数甚至超过了2024年总统选举期间。
Turnout for Democrats has increased in urban areas, and Democrats have posted gains even in conservative rural counties, according to nonpartisan voting analyst Steven David. David, a former chief operating officer for the city of Houston, has monitored statewide early-vote turnout on his website and compared it with previous elections. While Texas voters don’t with a party, they pick the primary they want to vote in. So David extrapolated party affiliation from that record to create a color-coded map that shows large swaths of blue across traditionally deep-red areas of the Panhandle, East and West Texas.
“我所在的个人选区现在非常难以预测。我们不知道该如何应对这种情况。在某种程度上，民调失灵了，”居住在休斯敦西北部深红色的托姆博尔的大卫说。“共和党人感到沮丧，民主党人充满动力，对于任何试图以共和党身份参选的人来说，这都是一种糟糕的混合情况。”大卫说，蓝色浪潮可能正在形成，这主要是因为民主党人和共和党人的愤怒与冷漠交织在一起。
Places like Montgomery County, north of Houston — where GOP officials refused a state lockdown during the pandemic — are seeing more Democrats vote than during the 2024 presidential election. “My personal precinct is now very unpredictable. We don’t know how to react to stuff like this. At some point, polling fails,” said David, who lives northwest of Houston in deeply red Tomball. “Republicans are frustrated, and Democrats are motivated, and that’s a bad mixture for anybody who’s trying to run as a Republican.”
甚至前往投票站的共和党人也可能会跳过某些竞选——即“投票不足”——或者分拆选票投票给民主党人，特别是塔拉里科以及州长格雷格·阿博特的挑战者、民主党籍州众议员吉娜·希诺霍萨。一些得州共和党选民，尤其是那些因数据中心和一项新的全州学券计划而感到不满的农村地区选民，曾表示他们计划首次投票给民主党。
A blue wave could be forming, David said, mainly because of a combination of Democratic and Republican anger and apathy. Even Republicans who go to the polls may skip some races — “under votes” — or split their tickets to vote for Democrats, particularly Talarico and Gov. Greg Abbott’s challenger, Democratic state Rep. Gina Hinojosa.
在提前投票但跳过了至少一场竞选的共和党人中，现年54岁的查尔斯要求只透露他的名，因为他在哈里斯县工作。他说，由于阿博特的学券计划将资金从公立学校分流，他无法投票给阿博特，但他也没法投票给民主党人。
Some Texas GOP voters, particularly those in rural areas upset by data centers and a new statewide voucher program, have said they plan to vote Democratic for the first time. Among Republicans who voted early but skipped at least one race was Charles, 54, who asked to be identified only by his first name because he works for Harris County.
“我不相信整个左翼运动，但很难投票给一个把自己的议程置于得克萨斯州其余利益之上的人，”他在威洛布鲁克购物中心的美食广场吃午饭时说道。“人们已经厌倦了在两个烂苹果里挑一个。”查尔斯表示，针对帕克斯顿的腐败指控让他陷入了“道德困境”，但他还是投票给他，以确保共和党人维持在参议院的多数地位并完成特朗普的议程。他指出，他的妻子和女儿都将投给民主党。
He said he couldn’t vote for Abbott because of how his voucher program diverted funding from public schools, but he couldn’t vote for a Democrat, either. “I don’t believe in the whole leftist movement, but it was hard to vote for someone who put their own agenda above the rest of Texas,” he said over lunch at Willowbrook Mall food court. “People are fed up with choosing the lesser of two evils.”Charles said the corruption allegations against Paxton gave him a “moral dilemma,” but he voted for him to ensure Republicans maintain their Senate majority and accomplish Trump’s agenda.
几个月来，民意调查显示，得克萨斯州的民主党人在选票领衔位置上首次在近代历史上领先多数共和党人。已连任三届的现任州长阿博特展开了他政治生涯中最积极的竞选活动，首次出席了州共和党代表大会并在全州参加了无数活动。饱受腐败和不忠丑闻困扰的帕克斯顿一直在全州奔走，但最近却取消了其最后冲刺阶段竞选之旅中在深红选区的几个行程。
He noted that his wife and daughter are voting Democratic. For months, polls have showed Texas Democrats leading most Republicans at the top of the ticket for the first time in recent history. Abbott, a three-term incumbent, has waged the most active campaign of his career, appearing at the state GOP convention for the first time and at numerous events statewide.
（一位竞选女发言人将此归咎于特朗普和副总统JD·万斯进行最后关头访问所导致的日程冲突。）10月19日开始的提前投票期间，得克萨斯州最大的城市、偏向左翼的县投票率创下纪录，其中包括休斯敦所在的哈里斯县，那里有超过100万选民投了票。大卫的分析显示，这比上一次中期选举的投票率高出一倍多，且几乎与过去通常能吸引远多选民的总统选举规模相当。
Paxton, plagued by corruption and infidelity scandals, has traveled the state but recently canceled several stops on his final campaign tour in deeply red areas. (A campaign spokeswoman blamed scheduling conflicts with last-minute visits by Trump and Vice President JD Vance.) Turnout during early voting, which began Oct. 19, set records in Texas’s largest urban, left-leaning counties, including Houston’s Harris County, where more than a million voters cast ballots. That’s more than twice the turnout for the last midterm election and almost as big as past presidential elections that normally draw far more voters, according to David’s analysis.
大卫指出，尽管共和党人和右翼独立人士可能会在选举日当天大举出现，但预报称一股冷锋将带来全州范围的降雨，这可能会抑制投票率。“这也是共和党人按响恐慌按钮的另一个原因。”对共和党提前投票率低感到担忧的共和党人包括来自休斯敦的州参议员保罗·贝滕库尔特。
While Republicans and right-leaning independents could show up in force on Election Day, there’s a cold front forecast with rain expected statewide that might dampen turnout, David noted. “Which is another reason Republicans are hitting the panic button.”Among Republicans concerned by low GOP early-vote turnout is state Sen. Paul Bettencourt of Houston.
“共和党的深厚人才储备出动的人数并没有民主党同行那么多，”贝滕库尔特说。“这正在开创一个我们以前在哈里斯县或得克萨斯州从未见过的新趋势和标准。”
“The Republican deep bench have not turned out as much as their Democrat counterparts have,” said Bettencourt. “This is setting a new trend and standard that we haven’t seen in Harris County or Texas before.”
“作为2008年蓝色浪潮的幸存者——当时我是一名县官员，并且目睹了2018年的那场浪潮，在我看来，这次的投票率看起来介于那两年之间，”他说，并补充说他甚至对休斯敦西北部的深红地区感到担忧。
“As a survivor of a blue wave in 2008, when I was a county official, and watching one in 2018, somewhere between those two years that’s what this turnout looks like to me,” he said, adding that he was even concerned about deep-red areas of northwest Houston.
根据戴维的分析，这些地区的独立选民可能会决定选举结果。他估计，共和党人需要全州54%的独立选民投票才能获胜，尽管选举日当天的独立选民往往倾向于右翼，但通常只有大约一半的人最终会投票给共和党。
Independents in those areas could decide the election, according to David’s analysis. Republicans need 54 percent of the independent vote statewide to win, he estimates, and while Election Day independent voters tend to be right-leaning, only about half usually end up voting Republican.
周五，在西北郊斯普林乔治·H·W·布什社区中心投票站外，倾向于右翼的独立选民马修·沙利文表示，投票率看起来很高，但他不确定哪个政党正在受益。
On Friday, Matthew Sullivan, a right-leaning independent voter outside the George H.W.
“几乎所有人都想出来投票，但我不知道是什么方向。有很多沮丧情绪，”38岁的沙利文说。他投票给帕克斯顿，但他的亲戚没有投票，或者还没投票。
Bush Community Center polling place in the northwest suburb of Spring, said turnout seemed strong, but he wasn’t certain which party was benefiting. “Most everybody wants to come out and vote, but I’m not sure what direction. There’s a lot of frustration,” said Sullivan, 38, who voted for Paxton but has relatives who didn’t, or who hadn’t voted yet.
在附近的威洛布鲁克购物中心，木匠伯恩斯预测，像他这样幻灭的前“让美国再次伟大”支持者将呆在家中，这可能会促成民主党的胜利。
At nearby Willowbrook Mall, Burns, the carpenter, predicted disillusioned former MAGA voters like him would stay home, potentially contributing to Democratic victories.
“我有六个孩子，年龄从16个月到9岁不等，还有一个男孩即将出生，我要养活他们，”他说。“有时我会挨饿。”
“I have six kids, 16 months to 9 years old, with another boy on the way that I have to feed,” he said. “There’s days I go hungry.”
伯恩斯表示，他的朋友和家人在这次选举或2028年都不会投票给共和党。
Burns said his friends and family will not vote Republican this election or in 2028.
“我们有数百万 人，”他说，指了指他那双从沃尔玛买来的磨损的50美元工作靴，又指了指他粗糙的双手。“我们达成了共识：我们受够了。”
“There’s millions of us,” he said, pointing to his worn $50 work boots from Walmart; to his rough hands. “And we’re in consensus: We’re done.”