共和党控制的州议会从去年开始实施大胆策略，试图通过激进的国会选区重划来对抗政治规律，以帮助共和党保住在联邦众议院的多数席位。
Republican legislatures embarked on a bold strategy beginning last year to stave off the laws of political gravity by aggressively gerrymandering congressional maps to help save the GOP’s majority in the US House of Representatives.
最终，这一努力落了空：在自2024年以来重划选区的九个州中，民主党有望最多净增18个席位，而共和党仅净增两个席位。在共和党重划最激进的三个关键州——得克萨斯州、佛罗里达州和田纳西州——共和党顶多只能维持现状，一旦所有选战尘埃落定，恐难有建树。
In the end, the effort fell flat: Across nine states where districts changed since 2024, Democrats are on track to pick up as many as 18 seats, compared to just two for Republicans. In three key states where the GOP redistricted most aggressively – Texas, Florida and Tennessee — Republicans appear poised to break even, at best, once all races are called.
周二大选的这一结果，让共和党重划专家不得不抵御外界质疑，即他们的重划举措适得其反，沦为“蠢人重划”——即实际上让本党失去席位的选区图。
That outcome in Tuesday’s election has left GOP mapmakers fending off suggestions that their redistricting moves backfired and became “dummymanders” — maps that actually cost the party seats.
共和党首席重划专家辩称，若得克萨斯州和佛罗里达州等州未采取行动，损失本会更大。
The Republican Party’s chief mapmaker argues the losses would have been even greater had states like Texas and Florida not taken action.
“有时浪高过墙。周二就是这种情况，”全国共和党重划信托基金的亚当·金凯德说道，他绘制了得克萨斯州的新选区图，并协助协调了共和党的全国选区策略。“那不是蠢人重划。”得克萨斯州决定重绘选区图——这是唐纳德·特朗普总统亲自力促的——引发了一场多州重划大战，双方都在寻求党派优势。共和党原指望新选区图能在得克萨斯州和佛罗里达州各净增多达五个席位，并在田纳西州获得一个以孟菲斯为基础的席位。
“Sometimes the wave is higher than the wall. That’s what happened on Tuesday,” said Adam Kincaid of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, who drew new maps in Texas and helped coordinate the party’s national map strategy. “That’s not a dummymander.”Texas’s decision to redraw its maps — urged on by President Donald Trump himself — prompted a multi-state gerrymandering war as each side sought partisan advantage. Republicans hoped their new maps would pick up as many as five seats each in Texas and Florida, and a Memphis-based seat in Tennessee.
这些预期收益并未实现，因为周二民主党获胜的“蓝色浪潮”高涨猛烈，重重冲击了共和党腹地。
Those gains didn’t materialize as Tuesday’s “blue wave” of Democratic wins crested high and crashed hard into Republican territory.
在得克萨斯州，共和党人确实拿下了一个达拉斯郊区选区，此前他们迫使民主党现任议员朱莉·约翰逊转战邻近的一个选区，结果她在初选中落败。但他们发现，在西得克萨斯边境一个空缺席位上，自己处境脆弱；该席位原由托尼·冈萨雷斯持有，他今年在承认与一名工作人员有婚外情后辞职。而共和党人莫妮卡·德拉克鲁斯——她那片横跨中南部、范围广阔的选区按说在新地图下应当稳保无虞——却失去了席位，该选区向民主党一方偏移了43个百分点。
In Texas, Republicans did pick up a suburban Dallas district after forcing Democratic incumbent Julie Johnson into a neighboring district, where she lost in a primary. But they found themselves vulnerable in the vacant west Texas border seat formerly held by Tony Gonzales, who resigned this year after admitting to an affair with a staffer. And Republican Monica de la Cruz — whose sprawling south-central district was supposed to remain safe under the new maps — lost her seat after it swung 43 points toward Democrats.
然而，民主党人的报复性选区重划努力更为成功。在加利福尼亚州，民主党人先让选民公投绕过该州的反不公正划分选区法，随后实施的新地图至少为他们多拿下五个席位。
A retaliatory redistricting effort by Democrats, however, was more successful. In California, Democrats have picked up at least five seats with new maps they enacted after going to voters to bypass the state’s anti-gerrymandering law.
而在俄亥俄州，一个两党委员会为满足州宪法要求，重新划定了对共和党有利的选区界线，民主党人又多了三个席位。
And in Ohio, where a bipartisan commission redrew Republican-friendly lines to meet a state constitutional requirement, Democrats picked up another three seats.
尽管如此，金凯德表示，若沿用旧地图，共和党人的处境会更糟，旧地图会让共和党在达拉斯和坦帕郊区等地处于脆弱境地。
Still, Kincaid said Republicans would have been worse off under the old maps, which would have left Republicans vulnerable in places like the Dallas and the Tampa suburbs.
佛罗里达州州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯在一条社交媒体帖文中给出了类似的分析。佛罗里达州代表团目前是共和党20席、民主党8席，而且看来将维持这一格局。“如果旧地图仍然有效，就会是18名共和党人和10名民主党人，”德桑蒂斯说。
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis offered similar analysis in a social media post. The Florida delegation is currently 20-8 Republican, and looks like it will remain so. “Had the old map been in effect, it would have been 18 Republicans and 10 Democrats,” DeSantis said.
在北卡罗来纳州，共和党人试图在早先的一次不公正划分选区基础上更进一步，对地图做了微调，意在翻转该州东部的一个选区。他们失去了那个选区——以及至少另外四个未被重划的选区，因为前民主党州长罗伊·库珀在美国参议院选举中以19.6个百分点的优势获胜，其声势带动了选票下方的候选人。
In North Carolina, Republicans tried to build on an earlier gerrymander with a map tweak intended to flip a district in the eastern part of the state. They lost that district — and at least four others that weren’t redrawn, as former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper’s 19.6-point margin of victory in a US Senate race had coattails down the ballot.
“北卡罗来纳州的问题与其说在于地图，不如说在于选票顶端没有任何人选能够带动那张地图、让它具有竞争力，”金凯德说。
“The problem in North Carolina wasn’t so much the map as it was not having anything at the top of the ticket that was driving that map and making it competitive,” Kincaid said.
尽管一些共和党人呼吁采取更激进的措施，金凯德表示他抵制了试图改变美墨边境地区选区的努力——该地区在周二的西班牙裔高投票率中大幅倾向民主党。
Despite calls from some Republicans to be even more aggressive, Kincaid said he resisted efforts to attempt to flip districts along the US-Mexico border — a region that swung heavily toward Democrats on Tuesday amid high Hispanic turnout.
尽管如此，全国民主党重新划分选区委员会主席约翰·比索尼亚诺称共和党的努力是“最愚蠢的操纵”。他说，按州计算赢输席位的情况掩盖了共和党地图的一个更大问题。
Still, John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, called the Republican effort “the dummiest of manders.”A state-by-state tally of seats won and lost obscures a bigger problem with the Republican maps, he said.
“我们刚刚经历了18个月，他们选择将选区划分操纵作为他们政党议题的基础。这是他们的优先事项，而唐纳德·特朗普本可以谈论解决食品杂货成本或药品成本问题，”比索尼亚诺说。“最终，结果是一场彻底的灾难。”那么，这算是愚蠢的操纵吗？根据这个词的原始定义，可能不是。
“We just went through 18 months of them choosing to put gerrymandering at the forefront of an issue base for their party. It was a priority for them, when Donald Trump could have been talking about fixing grocery costs or pharmaceutical costs,” Bisognano said. “And in the end, the results were a complete catastrophe.”So was it a dummymander?
伯纳德·格罗夫曼在二十年前创造了这个词，当时他研究了1990年代南方民主党自我毁灭式的选区操纵。他说，确定一个愚蠢的操纵需要分析反事实：在没有操纵的情况下，绘制地图的政党表现会如何？
Under the original definition of the word, probably not. Bernard Grofman, who coined the term two decades ago in looking at self-defeating Democratic gerrymanders in the South in the 1990s, said determining a dummymander requires an analysis of the counterfactual: how well would the mapmaking party have done without the gerrymander?
“有两件事在发生：在你试图从对方政党赢得席位的选区里发生了什么，以及你过度借用并削弱了自己防御的其他选区里发生了什么，”格罗夫曼说。
“There’s two things going on: What happens in the districts where you’re trying to win seats from the other party, and what happens from the other districts where you borrowed too much from and then weakened your defenses,” Grofman said.
他说，未能赢得这些新席位并不构成愚蠢的操纵。失去那些变得不那么安全的席位才算。
Failing to win those new seats doesn’t constitute a dummymander, he said. Losing the seats that were made less safe does.
目前，中期选区划分战争似乎已达成停火。共和党的一个主要目标是佐治亚州，州长布莱恩·坎普周三表示，他不会召开特别会议重新绘制该州的选区地图。在民主党当选州长凯莎·兰斯·博特姆斯领导下的分裂政府意味着，任何一方都无法在2027年单方面采取行动。
For now, the mid-decade gerrymandering war seems to have reached a cease-fire. One top target for Republicans was Georgia, where Governor Brian Kemp said Wednesday that he would not call a special session to redraw that state’s maps. Divided government under Democratic Governor-Elect Keisha Lance Bottoms means neither party could act unilaterally in 2027.
弗吉尼亚州和马里兰州在2026年面临着与2028年不同的重新划分选区法律障碍，但推翻民主党现任议员在周二赢得的选区的动力较小，比索尼亚诺说。
Virginia and Maryland faced legal obstacles to redistricting for 2026 that they wouldn’t have in 2028, but have less incentive to disrupt districts that Democratic incumbents won on Tuesday, Bisognano said.
因此，对金凯德来说，下一场大战将在2030年人口普查之后到来，届时各州将不得不重新划分选区以应对州内和跨州的人口变化。“我一直在考虑未来十年。我的想法就在那里，”金凯德说。
So for Kincaid, the next big battle comes after the 2030 census, when states will have to redistrict to account for population changes across and within states. “I’m always thinking about the next decade. That’s where my mind is,” Kincaid said.