共和党在阳光之州的主导地位周二可能面临严峻挑战。加里·芬奥特 塔拉哈西，佛罗里达州讯——中期选举前几天，佛罗里达州首席财务官兼前州共和党主席警告一群共和党选民，该州已成为“我们意识形态对手的目标”。
GOP dominance of the Sunshine State could see a sharp challenge Tuesday.
“左派想做的事，没有比把这个州变成蓝州更迫切的了，”布莱斯·英格利亚在布鲁克斯维尔的一场竞选集会上说，“如果佛罗里达沦陷，整个国家也将随之沦陷。”在近期的阳光之州选举中，这种修辞夸张通常被视为旨在提高投票率的临时惯常夸大之词。但自2018年以来，首次出现多种迹象——体现在民调以及提前投票和邮寄投票的党派构成中——表明，在共和党主导的佛罗里达州，全州多场竞选可能异常胶着。
By Gary Fineout TALLAHASSEE, Florida — Days before the midterms, Florida’s chief financial officer and former state GOP chair warned a crowd of GOP voters that the state had become a “target of our ideological opposition.”
共和党人已掌控州长官邸近30年，州议会的执政时间更长。现任州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯四年前在连任竞选中大获全胜。自2016年以来，前总统唐纳德·特朗普已三次赢得该州。整个州内阁均由共和党人组成，共和党在州议会中占据绝对多数。目前，该州28名众议员中有20名是共和党人，两名参议员也是共和党人。
“There is nothing, nothing more that the left wants to do than turn this state blue,” Blaise Ingoglia said at a Brooksville campaign rally. “And if Florida goes, so goes the nation.”In recent Sunshine State elections, this rhetorical flourish would be seen as normal last-minute hyperbole designed to boost turnout. But for the first time since 2018, there are multiple signs — borne out in polling and the partisan breakdown of early voting and voting by mail — that multiple races statewide in GOP-dominated Florida could be incredibly tight.
但这种主导地位周二可能面临严峻挑战。尽管支出远超对手，共和党众议员拜伦·唐纳兹与前众议员、民主党提名人大卫·乔利的州长竞选陷入胶着。尚不清楚共和党是否会翻转几个民主党众议院席位，这些席位因本十年中期重新划区而被州共和党立法者大幅改变。
Republicans have held the governor’s mansion for close to 30 years — and the Legislature even longer than that. Outgoing Gov. Ron DeSantis romped in his reelection battle four years ago. President Donald Trump has won the state three times since 2016. The entire state Cabinet is made up of Republicans, and the GOP holds a supermajority in the Legislature. Currently 20 of the state’s 28 House members are Republican, as are the state’s two senators.
而在争取连任的竞选中，共和党参议员阿什莉·穆迪对民主党州众议员安吉·尼克森的领先优势，据最近民调显示，比唐纳兹在其竞选中的优势更大。但即便如此，这场竞选也比预期更为接近。
But that dominance could see a sharp challenge Tuesday. Despite dramatically outspending his rival, GOP Rep. Byron Donalds is locked in a tight race for governor with former Rep. David Jolly, the Democratic nominee. It’s not clear if Republicans will flip a handful of Democratic House seats that state GOP lawmakers significantly altered this year due to middecade redistricting.
许多共和党人——包括德桑蒂斯——对共和党的投票率感到不安。上周一度，德桑蒂斯在社交媒体上发文称，他对波尔克县共和党早期投票数据不满意，该县是佛罗里达州重要的4号州际公路走廊上的一块深红县份。
And in her bid to hold on to her seat, GOP Sen. Ashley Moody does have a bigger lead over Democratic state Rep. Angie Nixon than Donalds does in his race, according to recent polls. But even that contest is closer than expected.
“四年前我竞选时，你可以在投票站前铺上烧红的炭火，我们的人也会赤脚走过去，”德桑蒂斯在水晶河的一次活动上说。“他们想投票；那只是不同时期。……我确实认为共和党还有工作要做，你们只管出去投票。” 唐纳兹或尼克松获胜将创造历史；佛罗里达州从未有过黑人州长或参议员。如果民主党能赢下全州范围的选举——包括州长竞选——这将标志着这个困境重重的政党命运发生巨大转变。
Many Republicans — including DeSantis — have become skittish over GOP turnout. At one point last week, DeSantis posted on social media that he wasn’t satisfied with Republican early voting numbers coming out of Polk County, a ruby-red county along Florida’s important Interstate 4 corridor.
佛罗里达州曾是全美首屈一指的摇摆州，包括混乱的2000年总统重新计票，最终仅以537票之差决出胜负。贝拉克·奥巴马曾两次赢下该州。但自从八年前德桑蒂斯和里克·斯科特仅以微弱优势击败民主党对手以来，民主党失去了选民登记优势，并在多个职位的选举中接连失利。
“When I was running four years ago, you could have put hot coals on the ground in front of the polling place, and our people were going to walk over those barefoot,” DeSantis said at an event in Crystal River. “They wanted to vote; it was just a different time. … I definitely think Republicans have some work to do, and you guys just have to get out there and vote.”A Donalds or Nixon victory would be historic; Florida has never had a Black governor or senator. If Democrats were able to pull out statewide wins — including the race for governor — it will mark a monumental change of fortune for the beleaguered party.
乔利竞选团队的高级顾问费尔南多·阿曼迪表示，民主党人赢下州长官邸将标志着“美国政治发生板块式转移”。“这意味着通往270张选举人票的道路将重新经由佛罗里达州，”阿曼迪说。他补充称，这将使乔利成为民主党的“终极新造王者”。
Florida was once the premier battleground state in the nation, including the chaotic 2000 presidential recount that came down to just 537 votes. Barack Obama won the state twice. But ever since DeSantis and Rick Scott barely edged out their Democratic opponents eight years ago, Democrats have lost their voter registration edge and multiple elections across offices.
共和党面临的障碍不断增加：今年的中期选举是十年来首次既没有德桑蒂斯也没有特朗普出现在选票上。选民经常提到他们对汽油价格、通胀和生活成本的经济焦虑。为了在一切不利因素下确保投票率，特朗普本人在过去两周内已两次来到佛罗里达，在可靠的共和党县举行集会。
Fernand Amandi, a senior adviser to the Jolly campaign, said a Democrat winning the governor’s mansion would mark a “tectonic shift in American politics.”“It means the road to 270 electoral votes would be rerouted through Florida,” Armandi said. He added it would make Jolly the “ultimate new kingmaker” for Democrats.
佛罗里达州共和党主席埃文·鲍尔在最近接受《Newsmax》采访时承认，特朗普“帮助我们的投票率”。
Hurdles for Republicans, meanwhile, have been mounting: This year’s midterms mark the first time that neither DeSantis nor Trump will be on the ballot in 10 years. Voters routinely cite their focus on economic anxieties over gas prices, inflation and the cost of living. And to try and ensure turnout despite it all, Trump himself has come to Florida twice in the past two weeks, where he has held rallies in reliably Republican counties.
“我有信心下周我们会大获全胜，”鲍尔说。“我们只需要动员每一位可能的共和党选民。”
Evan Power, the chair of the Republican Party of Florida, acknowledged in a recent interview with Newsmax that Trump “helps our turnout.”
唐纳德斯表示：“无论是接近还是大胜对我都无所谓。我们无论面对什么比赛都会努力工作。无论比赛计划是什么，你每天都要尽力而为。”
“I’m confident we will have big wins next week,” Power said. “We just have to turn out every Republican voter possible.”
他承认选举比预期更为激烈，但补充道：“我们仍将每天外出工作。我们知道本周末和周二会有大量共和党选民前往投票站。”
Donalds said that “whether it's close or it's a blowout doesn't matter to me. We always work hard no matter what the game is. No matter what the game plan is for, you do everything that you can every single day."
佛罗里达州民主党主席尼基·弗里德则反驳说，特朗普需要在本州竞选表明共和党人正担忧。
He acknowledged the election was tighter than expected, but added: "We are still going to go out and work every single day. We know that we are going to have a lot of Republican voters who are going to show up to the polls over this weekend and on Tuesday.”Nikki Fried, the Florida Democratic chair, retorted that the need for Trump to campaign in his home state showed that Republicans were worried.
“这是一次最后的努力，旨在支撑陷入困境的共和党竞选，”弗里德在特朗普在代托纳海滩露面前数小时说。
“This is a last-ditch effort to prop up Republican campaigns that are flailing,” Fried said a few hours before Trump’s appearance in Daytona Beach.
周二的投票将是一个不可预测且有时充满争议的周期的高潮，包括尼克松在民主党初选中的意外胜利以及唐纳德斯在共和党初选中保持领先的能力，尽管德桑蒂斯直到八月投票后才支持他。
The vote Tuesday will be the culmination of an unpredictable and at-times contentious cycle, including Nixon’s upset victory in the Democratic primary and Donalds’ ability to remain the front-runner in the Republican primary despite DeSantis refusing to back him until after the August vote.
留在选票顶端的这些人形成了鲜明对比。在州长竞选中，唐纳兹誓言要保持佛罗里达州的保守倾向，并忠实于德桑蒂斯推行的大量政策变革。乔利曾是反特朗普的共和党人，在做了大约七年独立人士后，直到去年才成为民主党人，他一直坚称自己将摒弃德桑蒂斯时代的“文化战争”，转而聚焦生活成本问题。两人在从税收、保险到教育、数据中心等各方面也都主张不同的政策。
Those left at the top of the ticket represent stark contrasts. In the governor’s race, Donalds has vowed to keep Florida’s conservative tilt and remain faithful to the vast array of policy changes put in place by DeSantis. Jolly, a former anti-Trump Republican who only became a Democrat last year after about seven years as an independent, has maintained he will brush aside the “culture wars” of the DeSantis era and instead focus on cost-of-living issues. The two men have also advocated different policies on everything from taxes to insurance, education to data centers.
参议院竞选中的分界线更加分明。穆迪曾任州总检察长，被任命接替马可·鲁比奥，她一直投票支持特朗普的议程。她批准了总统的减税政策，并十多次投票反对限制总统在伊朗战争中权力的努力。穆迪是执法人员的坚定捍卫者，她将民主党对手称为“激进分子”，因为尼克松今年加入了美国民主社会主义者组织，尽管她否认了该组织的一些纲领，比如削减警察经费。
The dividing line in the Senate race is even wider. Moody, a former state attorney general who was appointed to replace Marco Rubio, has voted consistently to support Trump’s agenda. She approved the president’s tax cuts and on more than a dozen occasions voted against efforts to limit the president’s authority in the war in Iran. Moody, a fierce defender of law enforcement officers, has branded her Democratic opponent as a “radical” given that Nixon joined the Democratic Socialists of America this year, though she disavowed some of its platforms like defunding the police.
尼克松是一名州议员，以大胆的议事策略著称，也是公开的进步派急先锋，她试图激励年轻选民和坚定的民主党人，同时抨击穆迪对特朗普和德桑蒂斯的忠诚，包括她在批准从一项医疗补助和解协议中转移资金中所扮演的角色，这些资金最终被转给了一个由德桑蒂斯盟友控制的政治委员会。
Nixon, a state legislator known for her bold floor tactics and an avowed progressive firebrand, has tried to energize young voters and stalwart Democrats as she has assailed Moody over her fealty to Trump and DeSantis, including her role in approving the transfer of funds from a Medicaid settlement that eventually was routed to a political committee controlled by a DeSantis ally.
尼克松的背景是工会和社区组织工作，她以对亿万富翁征税、实施“全民联邦医疗保险”和普及儿童保育的承诺参选。她是本选举季最活跃的竞选者，每天穿着标志性的亮粉色套装，乘坐印有她形象的“万吉”面包车，进行大量停留和媒体采访。
Nixon, whose background is in union and community organizing, is running on promises to tax billionaires and implement “Medicare for all” and universal childcare. She has been the most active campaigner this season, making numerous stops and media interviews every day in her signature hot pink outfits and traveling in the “Vangie” — a van bearing her image.
在佛罗里达州过去三次选举周期中，进入最后几天时并没有太多的阴谋和猜测。今年则带来了更多悬念。
In the last three election cycles in Florida, there had not been much intrigue and speculation heading into the final days. This year has brought more suspense.
“选举日会有多红？这就是那个数百万美元的问题，”塔拉哈西的民主党数据分析师马修·伊斯贝尔说。“要么这表明共和党投票率灾难的明显迹象，要么它会成为一次如此红色的选举日，以至于未来的提前投票分析将毫无意义。”
“How red could Election Day be? That is the multimillion-dollar question," said Matthew Isbell, a Democratic data analyst in Tallahassee. "Either this is a clear sign of a GOP turnout disaster, or it's going to be such a red Election Day that will really make it where future early vote analysis will be pointless."