共和党人周一返回华盛顿，此前他们在选举中惨败，导致在特朗普总统任期最后两年里失去了国会两院的控制权。他们的心情与命运相匹配。席卷中期选举的“蓝色浪潮”迫使共和党进行反思，引发了关于哪里出了错、谁该负责以及如何在2028年选举周期到来前扭转颓势的问题。这些对话上周已开始，但随着共和党人重返国会大厦、舔舐伤口、寻找答案并相互指责，讨论愈演愈烈。
Republicans returned to Washington on Monday following an election rout that saw them lose both chambers of Congress for the final two years of President Trump’s time in office. Their mood matched their fortunes. The blue wave that crashed into the midterms has forced a reckoning within the GOP, sparking questions about what went wrong, who bears the blame and how to right the listing ship in time to salvage the 2028 cycle. Those conversations had started last week, but they’re taking off now that Republicans are back in the Capitol, licking wounds, seeking answers and pointing fingers.
他们毫不留情面。“里面有很多愤怒的人，”众议员理查德·麦考密克（共和党-佐治亚州）指着众议院投票大厅说。“很多人在指指点点。其中一些指责是合理的，涉及资金花在哪里、如何筹款、信息传递是什么、信息源自何处。你能看到人们说出各种各样的话。”众议员特罗伊·内尔斯（共和党-得克萨斯州）认为，他会给国会的成绩单打F。
They aren’t mincing words. “There's a lot of pissed off people in there right now,” Rep. Richard McCormick (R-Ga.) said, pointing to the House voting chamber. “A lot of people who are pointing fingers. Some of it rightfully so on where the spend was, how we raise money, what the messaging was, where the message came from. You can see people say all kinds of things.”Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) argued that he would give Congress an F on its report card.
“这是一个可怕的选举年，”他说。“我是说，我认为美国人有理由对我们的表现、国会整体的表现感到不满。”国会大厦内的基调同样阴郁。一些共和党人表示，该党在政策优先事项上与选民脱节。“我认为你看看这届国会选择做什么，这届国会……把优先事项定为非民众的优先事项，当你抛弃生命权捍卫者，抛弃有需要的人，抛弃穷人，抛弃劳动者时，美国人可能会对此有话要说，”参议员乔什·霍利（共和党-密苏里州）说。
“It was a horrible election year,” he said. “I mean, I think the American people have a right to be upset with our performance, our performance as Congress as a whole.”The tone across the Capitol was similarly dour. Some Republicans said the party simply lost touch with voters when it came to policy priorities. “I just think that you look at what this Congress chose to do, this Congress…made its priorities what were not the people's priorities, and when you abandon pro-lifers, when you abandon the needy, when you abandon [the] poor, when you abandon working people, the American people might have something to say about that,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).
“我在这些事后分析中看到很多推卸责任的现象。我认为也许是国会里的人为国会所做之事承担责任的时候了，”霍利补充道。
“I see a lot of blame shifting going on in all of these postmortems. I think maybe it's time for people who are in Congress to take responsibility for what Congress did,” Hawley added.
上周的中期选举令各方政治观察人士——包括议员和外部专家——大为震惊，共和党在众议院和参议院均告失利，败选幅度为赛前鲜少有人预料。在众议院，这股浪潮意味着民主党有望在明年掌握约260个席位，而参议院民主党可能控制56个席位。这两个数字在投票前几乎无法想象。共和党最终将如何反应，短期内尚难知晓。
Last week’s midterms stunned political observers of all stripes — lawmakers and outside experts alike — as Republicans lost both the House and Senate by margins that few predicted beforehand. In the House, the wave means Democrats are on track to hold roughly 260 seats next year, while Senate Democrats could control 56 seats. Both numbers were almost unthinkable heading into the polls. How Republicans ultimately react won’t be known for some time.
但就目前而言，部分共和党人呼吁推迟党内领导层选举，认为党派需要对上周的惨败进行自我反省，并在内部做出改变，然后再作为会议推进工作。“距离周二大选还不到一周，我们需要弄清为何以及如何失去了美国民众的信任，”众议院筹款委员会主席杰森·史密斯（共和党-密苏里州）在X平台上写道。“作为一个会议，我们还需要解决我们的规则如何赋予成员权力，使其能够投票反对规则、法案，甚至议长。在选出新领袖之前不解决这些问题，就是对当选共和党领袖的人不负责任。”
But in the near term, some Republicans have called for GOP leadership elections to be delayed, arguing that the party needs to self-reflect on their brutal beating last week and make changes internally before moving forward as a conference. “We are less than a week removed from Tuesday’s elections, and need to understand how and why we lost the trust of the American people,” House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) wrote on X. “We also need, as a Conference, to address how our rules have empowered members to vote against rules, bills, and even the Speaker. Failing to address these issues before choosing someone new to lead our Conference is doing a disservice to whoever we choose as Republican Leader.”
杰夫·范德鲁众议员（共和党-新泽西州）在中期选举中落败，令许多视其为稳操胜券的观察人士大跌眼镜，他指出了导致其党派衰退的熟悉因素：高油价、拖延已久的乌克兰战争，以及特朗普竞选时反对的那种与伊朗的战争。“很多事情出了错。有些你能控制，有些你控制不了。……这一切在恰当的时机汇聚在一起，”他说。
Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.), whose midterm defeat stunned many observers who deemed him to be safe, pointed to the familiar factors driving his party’s decline: High gas prices, a war in Ukraine that’s dragged on, and a war with Iran of the type that Trump had campaigned against. “A lot of things went wrong. Some of them you can control, some of them you can’t. … It all queued up at just the right time,” he said.
“我希望我们能吸取教训。我们必须停止内部争吵，拿出一个明确的信息。”在相互指责声中，部分众议院共和党人表示，责任应完全归咎于参议院，该院晦涩的规则在过去两年里阻止共和党领袖推进数十项众议院通过的法案。“我认为迈克·约翰逊、议长约翰逊和众议院已经竭尽全力。
“I hope we do learn. We’ve got to stop arguing with each other [and] get a message.”Amid the finger pointing, some House Republicans said the blame should fall squarely on the Senate, where the esoteric rules of the chamber prevented GOP leaders from moving dozens of House-passed bills over the past two years. “I think Mike Johnson, Speaker Johnson, and the House did everything they could. We sent a lot of legislation to the Senate, and there's over, 500 or 600 bills over there that are just sitting there. America First bills. I have some of them, and the Senate's done nothing with them,” Nehls said.
“我们向参议院发送了大量立法，那里有500到600个法案正搁置着。这些是‘美国优先’法案。我手里有一些，但参议院对此毫无作为，”内尔斯说。还有人将矛头指向总统，他的移民打击行动触动了大多数美国人的神经，并似乎让西班牙裔选票转向了民主党。“很多选民因为边境安全而投票给总统，但他们不喜欢他过度热心的ICE执法行动，而他基本上也承认了这一点，”参议员约翰·科宁（共和党-得克萨斯州）说，他在今年早些时候的初选中败给了得克萨斯州总检察长肯·帕克斯顿。
Still others pointed fingers at the president, whose immigration crackdown struck a nerve with a majority of Americans and seemed to shift the Hispanic vote over to Democrats. “There was a lot of people who voted for the president because of border security who didn't like his overzealous ICE enforcement actions, and he basically admitted the same,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who lost his primary to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton earlier in the year.
随后，帕克斯顿在初选中意外败给了民主党人詹姆斯·塔拉里科。虽然共和党人在选举之夜对前景普遍感到悲观，但也有人迅速指出政治中的一个简单现实：钟摆总是在来回摆动，运势会随着政治环境的变化而改变。考虑到这一点，一些人已经开始展望他们将重掌大权的那个周期。“这就是政治，”范德鲁说。“我妻子依然爱我；孩子们依然爱我；孙辈们依然爱我；我的德国牧羊犬依然爱我。我过得很好。”范德鲁已计划在2028年再次参选。
Paxton then faced a shocking defeat to Democrat James Talarico in the primary. While Republicans were largely gloomy about their fate on election night, some were also quick to point out the simple reality that, in politics, the pendulum is always swinging back and forth, and fortunes change with a shift in political environments. With that in mind, some were already looking ahead to that cycle when they’ll be back in power. “This is politics,” Van Drew said. “My wife still loves me; my kids still love me; my grandkids still love me; my German shepherd still loves me. I’m OK.”Van Drew is already planning to run again in 2028.