马克·列维、迈克·卡塔利尼、约翰·汉纳、卡尔文·伍德沃德 报道周二的中期选举利害攸关，以至于 65 岁的谢恩·邓恩生平第一次走进了投票站。
MARC LEVY, MIKE CATALINI, JOHN HANNA, CALVIN WOODWARD The stakes in Tuesday’s midterm elections are so high that Shane Dunn voted for the first time in his life, at age 65.
在东海岸各地当过厨师后，邓恩搬到了费城郊区，并在上周于莱维敦投票。“我一直是个忙碌的人，”他在投票站外说道。但现在，“我正在了解我们国家正在发生的事情，这才是把我带出来的原因。”他把票投给了民主党。“能表达我的心声，感觉真好，”他说着，拍了拍黑色连帽衫上那张“我已投票”的贴纸。
After a career as a cook up and down the East Coast, Dunn moved to the Philadelphia suburbs and voted last week in Levittown. “I was always a busy man,” he said outside his polling place. But now, “I’m learning what’s going on within our country, and this is actually what brought me out.”Democrats got his vote. “It feels great, to put my word in,” he said, patting the “I Voted” sticker on his black hoodie.
全美各地的选民也在表达他们的心声，他们将决定哪个党派控制参众两院，并在共和党总统唐纳德·特朗普任期最后两年掌管州长办公室、州议会和州一级领导职位。他们许多人眼中的现实是：他们熟知的美国正在溜走。
Voters across the United States are getting their word in, too, as they determine which party controls the Senate and the House and takes charge of governors’ offices, legislatures and state leadership posts in the final two years of Republican Donald Trump’s presidency . What many of them see is that the America they’ve known is slipping away.
他们看到立法者带头无法无天。他们看到政客在邻里间煽动仇恨，到处都是腐败，亿万富翁称王称霸，文化不再反映他们的生活——简而言之，美国的基石岌岌可危。更别提那些疯涨的汽油价格了。
They see lawlessness coming from those who create the laws. They see hate stirred by politicians among neighbors, corruption at every turn, billionaires ruling the roost and a culture that doesn’t speak to how they live — in short, American bedrock at risk of crumbling. Not to mention those crazy gas prices .
在美联社记者对全国提前投票点和投递箱前数十名已投票者的采访中，焦虑感显而易见，反对特朗普者的焦虑最为强烈，但许多支持者也同样焦虑。
In dozens of Associated Press interviews with people who cast ballots at advance polling places or drop boxes across the country, the angst was palpable, most sharply from those who oppose Trump but also from many who support him.
“我今天投票，是想给这疯狂踩踩刹车，”59 岁的亚瑟·霍纳在宾夕法尼亚州哈里斯堡的多芬县选举局投递邮寄选票后说道。他经营一家食品进口营销公司，因关税受损。他投了民主党的票。
“I saw my vote today as trying to put the brakes on just the madness,” said Arthur Horner, 59, who runs a food importing and marketing company that has been hurt by tariffs , after dropping his mail ballot at Dauphin County’s election bureau in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He voted for Democrats.
在爱荷华州苏城，61岁的养牛场主伊丽莎白·马莱特在伍德伯里县那座历史悠久的草原风格法院大楼投票后走出，对各种事情感到愤愤不平——加工食品里的化学物质、儿子申领退伍军人福利的艰难历程，或许最令她难以接受的是，她眼中社会正在向左急转。在她看来，事情似乎都坏了。
In Sioux City, Iowa, cattle rancher Elizabeth Marlett, 61, voted in Woodbury County’s historic Prairie-style courthouse and walked out stewing about a variety of things — the chemicals in processed food, her son’s struggles to get his veterans’ benefits and, perhaps most of all, what she sees as society’s leftward lurch. Things seem broken to her, too.
“家庭价值观正在被抛弃，必须把它们找回来，”她说。“我们的自由被践踏了。宗教被践踏了。我认为我们这些多数派需要挺身而出，不再保持沉默。”她投了共和党的票。
“Family values are going by the wayside, and they need to be brought back,” she said. “Our liberties have been stomped all over. Religion has been stomped all over. And I believe we in the majority need to step up and stop being silent.”
空气中弥漫的愤怒，被一位出言不逊、不容许任何冒犯的总统搅动，让一些人难以承受。
She voted Republican. The anger in the air, stirred by a cursing president who abides no slights, is too much for some people.
“他就是在毁灭我们，”72岁的民主党人琳达·马科尔在宾夕法尼亚州巴克斯县沃明斯特镇图书馆外谈到总统时说。
“He’s just destroying us,” Democrat Linda Markle, 72, said of the president. She spoke outside the Warminster Township library in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
“我为这个国家感到非常害怕，”她说。“人们过去会互相照应。现在不再了。”
“I am so afraid for this country,” she said. “People used to look out for each other. Not anymore.”
“现在人们做的只是互相仇恨，”她说，特朗普“似乎给了他们勇气，让他们大胆地变成那样。…… 分裂太可怕了，绝对太可怕了，我巴不得他赶紧离开。”
“All people do now is just hate each other,” she said, and Trump “seems to have given them the courage to go ahead and be like that. … The division is horrible, absolutely horrible, and I can’t wait to see the back of him.”
27岁的哈里斯堡软件工程师、共和党人克里斯·史密斯2024年投了特朗普的票，他在一定程度上认同马科尔的感受。
Republican Chris Smith, 27, a Harrisburg software engineer who voted for Trump in 2024, sympathizes with Markle’s sentiment, to a point.
“很多人出于各种理由恨他，我能理解为什么，”他说，并指出“我觉得他在很多事情上有点疯了。”但他喜欢特朗普致力于让制造业回流美国以及关税政策的目标，他投共和党的票是因为仍认为该党比民主党更负责任地管理财政。
“A lot of people hate him for various reasons, and I can understand why,” he said, noting that ”I think he’s kind of going a bit crazy on a lot of things.”But he likes Trump’s effort to return manufacturing to the U.S. along with the goals of his tariffs, and he voted Republican because he still thinks that party is more fiscally responsible than Democrats.
在俄亥俄州，来自新匹兹堡的退休家庭护理工作者洛丽·威尔金森和她的丈夫、清洁工大卫认为自己是独立选民。大卫最近给他们的共和党州长迈克·德怀因写信，告诉他干得很好，他们过去曾投票给共和党的乔治·W·布什竞选总统。
In Ohio, Lori Wilkinson, a retired home health worker from New Pittsburg, and her husband, David, a janitor, consider themselves independents. David recently wrote to their Republican governor, Mike DeWine, to tell him what a good job he’s doing, and they voted for Republican George W. Bush for president in the past.
特朗普？“他是美国历史上最糟糕的总统，”大卫在韦恩县选举中心说。“你每天醒来都会想，‘他现在又要干什么？’”洛丽说：“他充满了仇恨，简直失控了。完全失控。”她担心如果民主党人周二大获全胜，特朗普会“彻底发疯”。
Trump? “He’s the worst president in United States history,” David said from the Wayne County election center. “You get up every day, and you’re like, ‘What’s he going to do now?’”Said Lori: “He’s got the hate just so bad, it’s just out of hand. It’s just out of control.”She fears that if Democrats win widely Tuesday, Trump will “go fricking berserk.”
特朗普支持者特蕾丝·门内尔理解这种看法。“他有一种那种傲慢的气质，让人不喜欢，有时我会因为他说话的方式而关掉他，”这位退休人员在韦恩县中心说。“但我是说，他在做正确的事。他在拯救我们的国家。”尽管民调显示他极不受欢迎，特朗普反复要求支持者假装他在中期选票上，押注这能激励原本可能不投票的粉丝去投票。但这是把双刃剑。
Trump supporter Therese Mennell gets it. “There’s that kind of arrogant vibe about him that people don’t like, and sometimes I shut him off because of the way he talks,” the retiree said from the Wayne County center. “But, I mean, he’s doing the right thing. He is saving our country.”Despite his striking unpopularity in polls, Trump repeatedly asked supporters to pretend he’s on the midterm ballot, betting that would motivate fans to vote who otherwise might not. But that cuts both ways.
20岁的萨蒙泰·姆万吉和19岁的弟弟加森亚·姆万吉首次投票，周二在堪萨斯州托皮卡的选举中心投了早期选票。两人都在一家制造铁路路侧建筑的工厂工作。
Samontae Mwangi, 20, and his brother, Gathenya Mwangi, 19, voted for the first time, casting early ballots Tuesday at their election center in Topeka, Kansas. Both work at a plant that manufactures trackside buildings for railroads.
他们和祖父、68岁的林恩·亨德森一起去投票，亨德森是固特异轮胎橡胶公司的退休工人，曾任海军陆战队一等兵，戴着海军陆战队帽子。亨德森说，他带孙子们去投票是因为自己的母亲最近去世了，他想让他们有一个事件来纪念他，等他不在了的时候。
They went with their grandfather, Lynn Henderson, 68, a retired Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. worker and a former Marine lance corporal who wore a Marine’s cap. Henderson said he took his grandsons to vote because his own mother died recently and he wanted them to have an event to remember him when he’s gone.
三人都希望选举能带来民主党的胜利和政治变革。加森亚表示，经济状况和对特朗普的不满可能会激励过去投票的人前来投票，也包括那些从未投票过的人。“如果很多人去投票，真的可能会改变现状、产生影响，我是这么觉得的，”他说。
All three are hoping that the election produces Democratic victories and political change. Gathenya said the economy and discontent with Trump could motivate people who’ve voted in the past to show up, as well as those who never have. “It really could change, make a difference, I feel, if a lot of people vote,” he said.
退休三明治店经理丹尼丝·旺德开着一辆装饰有美国鹰图案车牌的面包车来到投票中心。这位坚定的特朗普支持者是民主党人的女儿。非法移民是她最关心的议题。
Denise Wunder, a retired sandwich shop manager, pulled up to the center in a van featuring a decorative license plate with an American eagle. The strong Trump supporter is the daughter of Democrats. Illegal immigration is her top issue.
“我认为特朗普有点像是我们最后的希望，因为否则这个世界会一塌糊涂，”她说。“是啊，他说蠢话，但你知道，我们也说。”
“I think Trump is kind of our last hope, because otherwise this world’s going to go to hell in a handbasket,” she said. “Yeah, he says stupid stuff, but, you know, so do we.”
在弗吉尼亚州里士满郊区的亨里科县，距离选举日还有一周，一个凛冽的秋日下午，选民稳步走进投票站。这一决策时刻，让一对保守派夫妇琼和弗兰克·巴克对国家的走向感到惋惜。
In the Richmond, Virginia, suburb of Henrico County, voters arrived at a steady clip on a crisp fall afternoon a week from Election Day. The moment of decision found one conservative couple, Joan and Frank Bark, lamenting the country’s direction.
“我担心特朗普变得太自我膨胀，影响了他做出明智或更有利决策的能力，”弗兰克说。但他补充道，“我也不想要来自那极左派的决策。”和丈夫一样已退休的琼谈到民主党人时说：“我没发现他们想改变或合作的地方多少。基本上就是‘我恨特朗普’。”但特朗普其实并不在选票上。他们投了共和党候选人的票。
“I’m afraid Trump has gotten so egotistical, it’s affecting his ability to make intelligent or more favorable decisions,” Frank said. But, he said, “I don’t want the decisions that would be generated from that far left side, either.”Joan, a retiree like her husband, said of Democrats: “I haven’t found very much that they want to change or work with. It’s just mostly, ‘I hate Trump.’”But Trump really isn’t on the ballot. They voted for Republican candidates.
在纽约州纳纽特，人们涌进社区中心的一个小房间投票；有些人穿着万圣节服装。护士普里姆罗斯·D·沙利文是独立选民。她对特朗普希望选民表现得好像他在参选一事嗤之以鼻。
In Nanuet, New York, people streamed into the small room of a community center to vote; some were in Halloween costumes. Primrose D. Sullivan, a nurse, is an independent. She scoffed at Trump’s wish that voters act as if he’s running.
“不，因为他没有，”她说。“当病人进医院时，你希望我处理的是事实，而不是‘嗯，让我假装你可能得了癌症’。不。你到底得没得癌症？我们需要根据事实行事。”她投了民主党人的票。
“No, because he’s not,” she said. “When a patient comes into the hospital, you want me dealing in facts, not in, ‘Hmm, let me act like you might have cancer.’ No. Do you or do you not have cancer? We need to proceed based on facts.”She voted for Democrats.
苏利文是少数几位选民之一，她指出特朗普与这些亿万富翁结成同盟，可能会加速美国的衰退。
Sullivan was among a number of voters who singled out the billionaires Trump has made common cause with and how that might feed into American decline.
“我不怨恨我们的富人，无论是杰夫·贝索斯还是，嗯，埃隆·马斯克，”她说。“但我确实对他们想要越来越多、做出根本不利于人类的事情感到有些问题。”
“I don’t begrudge any of our wealthy people, Jeff Bezos or, you know, Elon Musk,” she said. “But I do have a certain problem with them wanting more and more and doing things that really don’t help humanity.”
“如果我们继续走这些人——指的是政治界和CEO阶层——的路，”她继续说道，“我们将不再拥有过去的任何样子。”她补充说，他们的态度是“自毁的”，因为“说实话，如果整个星球自毁，富人也会跟着我们一起毁灭。”
“If we keep going the way these guys are going,” she went on, meaning both the political and CEO classes, “we’re not going to have anything like what we had in the past.”Theirs is a “self-destructive attitude,” she added, “because, honestly, if the whole planet destroys itself, the wealthy go with us.”
在南卡罗来纳州福特米尔的基督教青年会投票站外，本杰明·乌普德格拉夫对精英进行了尖锐的谴责，他回顾了自己从“声音洪亮的年轻共和党人”在2016年投票支持特朗普，到在参议院选举中投票后成为“一辈子民主党人”的转变。
Outside the polling station at the YMCA in Fort Mill, South Carolina, Benjamin Updegraft offered a piercing denunciation of the elite as he traced his evolution from a “full-throated young Republican” who voted for Trump as a young man in 2016 to a “lifetime Democrat,” after casting his ballot in the Senate race.
他提到了马斯克在乌克兰限制其星链卫星互联网服务，扰乱了对俄罗斯攻击的关键防御，以及共和党人维韦克·拉马斯瓦米在俄亥俄州州长竞选中的广告，其中出现了民主党竞争对手艾米·阿克顿的疏远母亲，作为必须遏制强权人物的理由。
He cited Musk’s throttling of his Starlink satellite internet service in Ukraine, which disrupted a key defense against Russian attacks, and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy’s ad in the Ohio governor’s race featuring the estranged mother of Democratic rival Amy Acton among the reasons powerful men must be brought to heel.
“这必须像癌症一样从这个国家根除，”乌普德格拉夫说。“我们肩负着巨大的责任，要夺回这个国家最糟糕的人对权力的紧握，并对他们的行为施以惩罚。”
“That needs to be cut out from this country like a cancer,” Updegraft said. “We have an incredible responsibility to take back the stranglehold that the worst people in this country have on the reins of power and to inflict punishment on them for their actions.”
在亚利桑那州斯科茨代尔，戴维·李描述了自己的保守成长背景、过去投票支持共和党，以及如今决定背离该党，在州长和众议院的竞争性选举中投票支持民主党。他认为特朗普的强硬移民执法是非法的。
In Scottsdale, Arizona, David Lee described his conservative upbringing, his past voting for Republicans and now his decision to turn against that party and vote Democratic in the contested races for governors and the House. He considers Trump’s heavy-handed immigration enforcement to be lawless.
“没有人想要开放边境，但你们在未经正当程序的情况下对待这些人，把他们送到他们根本不属于的国家，”现年63岁的李说。“再也没有规矩了。”美联社在投票站采访的特朗普支持者表示，他们能够容忍伊朗战争导致的油价飙升，在某些情况下，他们把原因归咎于实际原因以外的因素。在战争本身问题上，他们也没有与他决裂。
“Nobody wants open borders, but you’re treating these people without due process, sending people to countries they don’t even belong to,” said Lee, 63. “There’s no more rules.”The Trump supporters interviewed by the AP at the polls signaled their tolerance of the surge of gas prices from the Iran war , in some cases blaming factors other than the actual cause. Nor did they break with him on the war itself .
其中一位是59岁的大卫·斯托弗，他是一家抵押贷款银行的分行经理，曾三次投票给特朗普。他在哈里斯堡选举办公室外说：“伊朗杀害美国人已经整整50年了。是的，在政府把那堆破事解决之前，我会暂时忍受油价上涨。”斯托弗被问到：“这会给你家预算带来压力吗？”“当然会。”如何应对？“我就继续开车。”
Among them was David Stouffer, 59, branch manager for a mortgage bank and three-time Trump voter, who spoke outside the Harrisburg elections office. “Iran has been killing Americans for 50 freaking years,” he said. “Yeah, I’ll suffer with some higher gas prices in the interim until they get that nonsense figured out.”Does that put a crunch on your household budget, Stouffer was asked. “Of course it does.”How to cope with that? “I just keep driving.”
“他让减税成了真事，”斯托弗说。“他守住了边境。对我来说，这是非常非常重要的事。”有数十名不属于特朗普核心支持者的民主党人、独立人士和共和党人不同意这一评价，即便其中一些人承认总统在税收和移民方面取得了成就。
“He’s made the tax cuts real,” Stouffer said. “He has secured the borders. That, to me, is a very, very big deal.”By the dozens, Democrats, independents and Republicans outside the core of Trump’s support differed with that assessment, even as some of them granted the president his achievements on taxes and immigration.
食品进口商霍纳对关税以及特朗普政府与法院之间来回拉锯的其他举措感到“抓狂”，而一个“软弱无能”、如今在选举中岌岌可危的共和党国会却基本袖手旁观。
Horner, the food importer, is going “bonkers” with the tariffs and all the other moves bouncing between the Trump administration and the courts while a “feckless” and now electorally endangered Republican Congress largely stands aside.
“你不能做生意，因为每个月你都得重新调整价格，就因为总统心血来潮去做一些他甚至没有宪法权力去做的事，”霍纳说。他还说：“他只是在拖时间——你心里清楚他知道这些是错的。”
“You can’t do business when every month you have to readjust your pricing because the president gets a wild hair on something that he’s not even constitutionally allowed to do,” Horner said. He added, “He’s just playing out the clock on all of this stuff — where you just know he knows it’s wrong.
“而我们得到了什么？医疗更贵、食品更贵、汽油更贵，商业环境一片混乱。”但来自哈里斯堡郊区梅卡尼克斯堡的74岁老人杰里·卡斯纳希望特朗普能尽可能多地执政。可惜“他不能再竞选了，”卡斯纳说。
“And what do we have? Higher healthcare, higher food, higher gas, a business environment that is complete chaos.”But Jerry Casner, 74, of Mechanicsburg, a suburb of Harrisburg, wants as much of Trump as he can get. Alas, “he can’t run again,” Casner noted.
“严格来说，”卡斯纳说，“他不能再次竞选了。”汉娜在堪萨斯州托皮卡采写报道；利维在宾夕法尼亚州哈里斯堡采写报道；卡塔利尼在宾夕法尼亚州莱维敦采写报道；伍德沃德在华盛顿采写报道。美联社记者朱莉·卡尔·史密斯在俄亥俄州伍斯特；埃里克·韦尔杜兹科在南卡罗来纳州福特米尔；托马斯·博蒙特在爱荷华州苏城；约瑟夫·弗雷德里克在纽约州纳纽埃特；塔萨尼·维蓬萨在宾夕法尼亚州沃明斯特；米凯拉·舒特勒在亚利桑那州斯科茨代尔；以及莎拉·兰金在弗吉尼亚州亨里科参与了报道。
“Well, technically,” Casner said, “he can’t run again.”Hanna reported from Topeka, Kan.; Levy from Harrisburg, Pa.; Catalini from Levittown, Pa.; and Woodward from Washington. Associated Press journalists Julie Carr Smyth in Wooster, Ohio; Erik Verduzco in Fort Mill, S.C.; Thomas Beaumont in Sioux City, Iowa; Joseph Frederick in Nanuet, N.Y.; Tassanee Vejpongsa in Warminster, Pa.; Mikella Schuettler in Scottsdale, Ariz.; and Sarah Rankin in Henrico, Va.