周二，众议院的每一个席位都将进行选举。上一次出现这种情况是在2024年大选中。
On Tuesday, every seat in the House of Representatives is on the ballot. The last time that happened was in the general election of 2024.
周二将决定同一个问题：哪个党派控制众议院。如果以2024年为参考，答案可能取决于少数选区中几千名选民的选择，而没人能预先知道这些选区会是哪些。
Tuesday will decide the same question: which party controls the House. If 2024 is any guide, the answer could come down to a few thousand people in a handful of districts, and nobody can know in advance which districts those will be.
控制众议院的党派在很大程度上决定哪些法案提交全院表决、谁担任委员会主席以及调查什么内容。2024年，共和党以220个席位赢得控制权，比获得多数所需的218席多出两席。他们最险胜的三个选区分别是：爱荷华州第1选区以798票优势获胜，科罗拉多州第8选区以2,448票优势获胜，宾夕法尼亚州第7选区以4,062票优势获胜。将这三个选区的胜出票数相加，总计7,308票。
The party that controls the House largely decides which bills reach the floor, who chairs its committees and what it investigates. In 2024, Republicans won that control with 220 seats, two more than the 218 needed for a majority. Their three narrowest wins were in Iowa’s 1st District by 798 votes, Colorado’s 8th District by 2,448 votes and Pennsylvania’s 7th District by 4,062 votes. Add the margins in those three together and you get 7,308 votes.
如果民主党仅赢下这三个席位，众议院将形成民主党218席对共和党217席的多数优势。其他席位组合也可能翻转众议院控制权，但没有任何一种组合的合计胜出票数比这更小。
If Democrats had won just those three seats, the House would have had a Democratic majority, 218 to 217. Other combinations of seats could also have flipped the House but none had a smaller combined margin.
胶着的竞争对双方都有利。2024年最胶着的众议院竞争是民主党获胜：亚当·格雷在加利福尼亚州第13选区以187票优势获胜。
Close races cut both ways. The tightest House race of 2024 was a Democratic win: Adam Gray won California’s 13th District by 187 votes.
而且胜出票数不会随时间保持不变。爱荷华州展示了形势逆转有多快。2020年，共和党人玛丽安内特·米勒-米克斯在当时的爱荷华州第2选区以仅6票优势击败民主党对手。但在2022年中期选举中，在重新划分的第1选区，米勒-米克斯以约20,000票优势击败民主党人克里斯蒂娜·博汉南。2024年，在与博汉南的再次对决中，米勒-米克斯以798票优势获胜。6票、20,000票、798票，仅在四年间便经历了如此剧烈波动。
And margins don’t stay put over time. Iowa shows how fast they can swing. In 2020, Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks, running in what was then Iowa’s 2nd District, defeated her Democratic opponent by just six votes. But in the 2022 midterm, in the redrawn 1st District, Miller-Meeks beat Democrat Christina Bohannan by about 20,000 votes. In 2024, in a rematch with Bohannan, Miller-Meeks won by 798 votes. Six votes, then 20,000, then 798, all in the course of just four years.
米勒-米克斯和博汉南在本次选举中再度对决。他们谁也不知道，这一次胜负将由6票决定，还是由20,000票决定。
Miller-Meeks and Bohannan are running against each other again this election. Neither of them knows whether this one will be decided by six votes or 20,000.
问题在于，许多有资格投票的美国人根本不去投票。今年大约有2.5亿人具备投票资格。在上届中期选举（2022年）中，不足半数的合格选民参与了投票，这意味着超过1.2亿人没有投票。调查研究指出了一个原因：皮尤研究中心在2018年中期选举后的调查中，受访的非投票者中有44%表示，他们不去投票至少部分原因是认为自己的选票不会有任何影响。
The problem is, many eligible Americans simply don’t vote. Roughly 250 million people are eligible to vote this year. In the last midterm, in 2022, fewer than half of eligible Americans voted, which means more than 120 million did not. Survey research points to one reason: In Pew’s survey after the 2018 midterm, 44% of the nonvoters it surveyed said that at least part of the reason they stayed home was that they did not think their vote would make a difference.
这种想法可能源于多种因素。有时是简单的算术逻辑：例如，在数百万张选票中，一张选票无法改变结果。有时取决于居住地：曼哈顿的共和党选民或得克萨斯狭长地带的民主党选民，或许有理由认为结果在第一张选票投出前就已尘埃落定。有时则是一种感觉：认为趋势和人口结构等更大的力量决定选举结果，而非个别选民。但没人能预先知道自己所在选区的竞争会有多激烈。
That belief can come from many places. Sometimes it’s arithmetic: the logic that one ballot among millions can’t change anything, for example. Sometimes it’s where you live: a Republican in Manhattan or a Democrat in the Texas Panhandle might be forgiven for assuming that the result is settled before a single ballot is cast. And sometimes it’s a sense that bigger forces, like trends and demographics, decide elections, not individual voters. But nobody really knows in advance how close the race they are voting in will be.
2024年需要多少额外选民投票才能让民主党赢得众议院多数席位？答案不是7308。这个数字衡量的是那三场胜利的微弱差距，而不是扭转它们所需的额外选民数量。
How many more people would have had to vote in 2024 to have given Democrats the majority in the House? The answer is not 7,308. That number measures how narrow the three wins were. And it is not the number of additional voters it would have taken to reverse them.
如果每一位额外选民都投给落后的候选人，仅需7300多张选票即可，首先是爱荷华州博汉南需要多得799票。但额外选民不会都投给同一方。有些人会支持已经领先的候选人，每一张这样的选票都会抵消一张投给落后候选人的选票。如果选民均匀分散，他们将完全相互抵消。
If every additional voter had backed the candidate who was behind, it would have taken just over 7,300, starting with 799 more votes for Bohannan in Iowa. But additional voters would not all pick the same side. Some would back the candidate who was already ahead, and each of those would cancel out a vote for the candidate running behind. If the voters split evenly, they would cancel one another out completely.
那么，我们假设这些额外选民存在倾向性。在每 100 名额外选民——即原本不打算投票的人——中，假设有 55 人支持落后的候选人，45 人支持领先的候选人。这样，落后的候选人每增加 100 名新选民，就能净增 10 票。按这个比例，要弥补爱荷华州 798 票的差距，大约需要 8000 名额外选民。基于这一假设，要扭转上文提到的三个选区的全部结果，总共需要约 7.3 万名额外选民。
So let’s assume a lean among the additional voters. Out of every 100 additional voters — voters who otherwise weren’t planning to vote — let’s say 55 back the candidate who was trailing and 45 back the one who was ahead. That leaves the trailing candidate 10 votes better off for every 100 new voters. At that rate, closing Iowa’s 798-vote gap would take about 8,000 additional voters. Under that assumption, you would need roughly 73,000 additional voters across the three districts I noted above to reverse all three results.
7.3 万名选民听起来很多，但如果跟不投票的人数相比，就显得微不足道了。在上届中期选举中，有超过 1.2 亿符合条件的成年人弃权，7.3 万不足千分之一。这些额外选民必须来自那三个选区，且倾向性须如我们假设的那样。即便如此，这个数字与跳过选举的总人数相比，依然很小。
Seventy-three thousand voters sounds like a lot, until you compare it to the number of people who don’t vote. Of the more than 120 million eligible adults who sat out the last midterm, 73,000 is fewer than one in every 1,000. Those additional voters would have had to come from those three districts and lean the way we assumed. Even so, the number is small next to the total number of people who skip elections.
所以，如果你所在的选区今年看起来不激烈，请记住爱荷华州。看似稳操胜券的席位，未必一直安全。而且，众议院选举只是今天选票上的一个项目。视你居住地而定，选票上可能还包括参议员、州长、州议会或学区委员会的竞选，以及公投议题。这些竞选中的任何一个都可能很胶着，且许多得到的民调关注度远低于选票顶端的大选。
So if your district isn’t close this year, remember Iowa. Seats that look safe don’t always stay that way. And the House race is only one line on today’s ballot. Depending on where you live, there may be races for Senate, governor, the state legislature or school board, as well as ballot measures. Any of these contests could be close, and many receive far less polling attention than the races at the top of the ballot.
如果你还没投票，周二就是投票日。如果你已经投了，还能做一件事。想想你认识的、打算放弃这次投票的人。也许他们觉得自己的选区很稳，或者结果已成定局。把这篇专栏发给他们。更好的是，主动提出送他们去投票站。
If you haven’t voted yet, Tuesday is the day. If you have, there’s one more thing you can do. Think about the person you know who is planning to skip this one. Maybe they believe their district is safe, or that the result is already decided. Send them this column. Better still, offer them a ride to the polls.