共和党上周惨败后，副总统万斯（JD Vance）毫不迟疑地对唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）最具影响力的决定之一提出质疑：“我们输掉选举的原因是战争，”万斯周三上午在推特上写道。“对那些愤怒并想说‘我早就说过’的人：你们是对的，你们确实早就告诉过我们了。”实际上，许多因素导致了这场失利，民调指向经济是最大因素。
After the Republicans got trounced last week, JD Vance wasted no time in second-guessing one of Donald Trump’s most consequential decisions: “The reason we lost is the war,” the vice president tweeted Wednesday morning. “To the people who are pissed off and want to say, ‘I told you so’: you’re right, you did tell us so.”In reality, many factors contributed to the loss, and polls point to the economy as the biggest one.
共和党本可预期会遭遇挫折，这是中期选举的常态。比尔·克林顿（Bill Clinton）执政时并未卷入战争，但其总统任期在1994年因国会两院均告失利而动摇。上一次总统所在政党在中期选举中赢得席位是在2002年。自1966年以来，只有两次中期选举让总统所在政党保持了对众议院的控制，另一次是1978年。
Republicans could have expected to suffer setbacks, the norm for midterm elections. Bill Clinton wasn’t fighting a war when his presidency was rocked in 1994 by the losses of both houses of Congress. The last time the president’s party gained seats in a midterm was in 2002. That was one of only two midterm elections since 1966 that left the president’s party in control of the House. The other was 1978.
当战争引发重大政治变局时，如1952年、1968年和2006-08年，通常涉及地面战斗，导致数千甚至数万美军伤亡，而非汽油价格每加仑暂时上涨1.50美元——这给典型家庭每周仅增加约20美元开支。如果这足以引发政治海啸，说明选民已完全丧失理性，总统将被迫在采取军事行动捍卫美国前，等待美国本土遭受攻击。
When wars cause major political shifts, as they did in 1952, 1968 and 2006-08, they usually involve ground combat leading to thousands or even tens of thousands of American casualties, not a temporary $1.50-a-gallon increase in the price of gasoline, which costs a typical household about $20 a week. If that’s enough to bring about a political sea change, then the electorate has lost all rationality, and presidents will be constrained to wait for an attack on U.S. soil before taking military action to defend America.
那么，共和党为何惨败？自2020年新冠疫情以来，选民对经济一直不满，此后每个执政党都面对愤懑的选民。美国消费者至今未能消化乔·拜登（Joe Biden）执政期间累计22%通胀的冲击。由于50岁以下选民缺乏通胀经验，他们抱有价格将回落的不切实际预期。实际上，工资需要追上来——而这需要时间。
So why did the GOP lose so badly? Voters have been unhappy about the economy since the Covid pandemic in 2020, and each party has faced a grumpy electorate as it has come into office since. American consumers haven’t gotten over the shock of 22% cumulative inflation under Joe Biden. Since voters under 50 had no experience with inflation, they have unrealistic expectations that prices will reset downward. Instead, wages need to catch up—and that takes time.
根据哈佛CAPS/哈里斯民调，2024年选民让民主党下台时，58%的人对经济感到不满，而上月底这一比例为64%。唐纳德·特朗普当选时，选民对经济较为满意，但这种情绪月复一月地消退，在关税发布时以及随后民主党竞选广告全面铺开时跌幅最大。在支持民主党的选民中，86%表示对经济不满。在中期选举前夕，仅有5%的选民将外交政策列为国家面临的最重要问题。战争之所以成为一个因素，很大程度上是因为汽油和柴油价格飙升。
According to the Harvard CAPS/Harris poll, 58% of voters were unhappy with the economy when they showed Democrats the door in 2024, compared with 64% late last month. They were happier with the economy when Donald Trump was elected, but that faded month after month, showing the biggest decline when tariffs were issued and then when Democratic campaign ads were in full swing. Among voters supporting Democrats, 86% said they were unhappy with the economy. Ahead of the midterms, only 5% of voters ranked foreign policy as the most important issue facing the country. To the extent that the war was a factor, it was in large part because of the spike in gasoline and diesel prices.
确实，福克斯新闻选民民调询问与伊朗开战是正确还是错误的决定时，约六成选民认为是错误决定。但哈佛CAPS/哈里斯民调的后续提问显示，选民并不想放弃这场战争——他们希望以正确的方式结束它。当被问及伊朗人是否诚意谈判时，65%的受访者回答否。伊朗人应该被允许控制霍尔木兹海峡吗？67%的人说不，其中包括两党的多数选民。
True, when the Fox News Voter Poll asked if going to war with Iran was the right or wrong decision, roughly 6 in 10 voters said it was the wrong decision. But the Harvard CAPS/Harris polls asked follow-up questions that suggest voters don’t want to abandon the war—they want to finish it the right way. Asked if the Iranians were negotiating in good faith, 65% of respondents said no. Should the Iranians be allowed to control the Strait of Hormuz? Sixty-seven percent said no, including a majority of both parties.
民调还询问伊朗是否应被允许获得核武器，85%的人回答不。民众认同冲突的目标，而这些目标若不通过冲突可能无法实现。当被问及如果伊朗人在关键问题上拒绝让步，美国使用武力是否合理时，63%的人回答是。战争拖延了，而选民希望它取得胜利——他们至今仍如此。
The poll also asked if Iran should be permitted to obtain a nuclear weapon, and 85% said no. People agree with the objectives of the conflict, and those objectives may not be achievable without conflict. Asked whether the U.S. is justified in using force if the Iranians refuse to yield on these key issues, 63% said yes. The war has dragged on when voters wanted it to be won—and they still do.
2024年选民群体中最大的变动发生在新晋的西班牙裔选民身上。虽然黑人选民的投票倾向几乎没有变化，但皮尤研究中心发现，民主党在拉美裔选民中的领先优势在2024年缩减了12个百分点，从15个百分点降至3个百分点。这一变化足以扭转大多数摇摆州的局势。然而，根据福克斯新闻选民民调，在众议院竞选中，他们又大幅回流，使民主党获得了30个百分点的优势。
The biggest 2024 swing in the electorate was among the newly minted Hispanic voters. While the black vote barely moved, the Pew Research Center found that the Democrats’ margin among Latinos swung 12 points in 2024, from 15 points to 3. That was enough to flip most of the swing states. They swung dramatically back, giving Democrats a 30-point edge in House races, according to the Fox News Voter poll.
西班牙裔边境城镇是否爆发了反战抗议？没有。拉美裔选民对该政府有两大不满——物价居高不下，以及移民与海关执法局（ICE）越权执法，实施强硬突袭，驱逐的不仅有罪犯，还有其他原本守法的非法移民。哈佛CAPS/哈里斯民调显示，68%的西班牙裔选民对ICE持负面看法。
Did Hispanic border towns see protests against the war? No. Latinos had two problems with this administration—that prices remained high and that Immigration and Customs Enforcement overreached, conducting heavy-handed raids and removing not only criminals but otherwise law-abiding illegal aliens. The Harvard CAPS/Harris poll found that 68% of Hispanic voters had a negative view of ICE.
共和党确实失去了一部分年轻男性选票，这是由塔克·卡尔森和坎迪斯·欧文斯等人持续且蓄意制造的分裂所引发的。他们针对数百万人群，而左翼博主则致力于动员其中一部分选民反对共和党。
The Republicans did lose some of the young male vote, triggered by the constant and deliberate division created by the likes of Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens. They targeted millions of people, while left-wing bloggers worked to mobilize some of that vote against Republicans.
共和党本应采取双管齐下的应对策略：直接针对这些博主以削弱其影响力，并发起攻势争取一些民主党女性选民，如那些在密歇根州投票支持众议员海利·史蒂文斯而非阿卜杜勒·赛义德的女性，传递旨在帮助当今“足球妈妈”群体的信息。
The Republican response should have been twofold: going after those bloggers directly to minimize their influence, and mounting an offense to get some of the Democratic women, like those who voted for Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens against Abdul El-Sayed, with a message geared toward helping today’s soccer moms.
共和党没有针对这些摇摆群体开展工作，而是专注于动员基本盘，这方面他们做到了。但由于缺乏对西班牙裔和女性的拓展，他们陷入被动防守，而民主党花费超过6.5亿美元宣传负担得起的生活和医疗成本议题。这推动了民调中认为自身经济状况恶化的人群比例月复一月地上升。
Instead of working on these swing groups, Republicans focused on turning out the base, which they did. But without outreach to Hispanics and women, they played defense, while Democrats spent more than $650 million on messages about affordability and healthcare costs. This drove up a month-after-month movement in the polls of people believing that their economic conditions were declining.
共和党输掉了本该能赢的论战。经济实现了较低通胀（而非通缩）、创纪录增长、工资上涨以及历史最高中位数工资，但这一切对选举结果毫无影响。对以色列的援助每年达38亿美元，其中几乎全部都在美国境内花费，并支持美国国防工业的就业岗位。关税推高了物价，但也每年带来约1700亿美元的减赤收入，对于30万亿美元的经济体而言，这只是九牛一毛。
The Republicans lost arguments they should have been able to win. The economy had lower inflation (though not deflation), record growth, increased wages and the highest median wage in history, all to no electoral impact. Aid to Israel is $3.8 billion annually, almost all of which is spent here and supports jobs in the U.S. defense industry. Tariffs raised prices but also brought in about $170 billion in deficit-reducing revenue a year, a drop in the bucket for a $30 trillion economy.
拜登先生那可笑地命名为《通胀削减法案》的法案花费了2万亿美元，其中大部分被浪费或挪用，足以推高通胀——其目的旨在推高汽油价格，借口是为了防止气候变化。
Mr. Biden’s laughably named Inflation Reduction Act spent $2 trillion, much of it wastefully or fraudulently, enough to drive inflation—and it was aimed at raising gasoline prices, purportedly to prevent climate change.
一个政府的选举成败，不取决于它是否做了民调显示民众想要的事，而在于它能否说服选民，它所做的事是正确的。这意味着总统在未来两年有三大基本目标：击败伊朗，证明其经济计划行之有效，以及抨击民主党思想的危险性，如“绿色新政”将永久推高能源价格，“全民医保”将摧毁我们所熟知的联邦医保和私人保险。
An administration’s electoral success is determined not by whether it does what the polls say the people want, but by whether it convinces voters that what it is doing is right. This means that the president has three basic objectives in the next two years: to defeat Iran, to demonstrate that his economic plans are working, and to hit the dangers of Democratic ideas like the Green New Deal, which would drive up energy prices permanently, and Medicare for All, which would destroy Medicare and private insurance as we know it.
特朗普先生及其政府需要向美国人解释，我们为何要对抗伊朗政权，因为它是世界上最大的恐怖主义国家赞助者，在过去47年里导致数千名美国人死亡。如果美国赢得这场战争，将为中东的和平与稳定以及永久更低的能源价格铺平道路。
Mr. Trump and his administration need to explain to Americans the reason we took on the Iranian regime, which is the world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism and is responsible for the deaths of thousands of Americans over the past 47 years. If America wins the war, it will clear the way for peace and stability in the Mideast along with permanently lower energy prices.
彭恩先生曾于1995年至2008年担任比尔和希拉里·克林顿的民调专家和顾问。他现任哈里斯民调主席兼Stagwell公司首席执行官。斯坦因先生曾于1986年至1993年担任纽约市议会议长。
Mr. Penn was a pollster and adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton, 1995-2008. He is chairman of the Harris Poll and CEO of Stagwell Inc. Mr. Stein served as New York City Council president, 1986-93.