新地图使得该州东北部黑人民主党众议员唐·戴维斯更难连任。照片：比尔·克拉克/CQ-Roll Call 通过盖蒂图片社提供 但一位专家表示，如果说选举中选区划分完全没有起作用，那将是误导。如果民主党周二中期选举的压倒性胜利有一个明显的结论，那就是共和党试图重新划分国会选区以有利于自己的努力适得其反。
The new map made it harder for Representative Don Davis, a Black Democrat in the north-eastern part of the state, to win re-election. Photograph: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images But, says one expert, it would be misleading to say that gerrymandering did not work at all in this election f there was one obvious conclusion from Democrats’ sweeping victories in the mid-term elections on Tuesday, it seemed to be that the Republican effort to redraw congressional districts in their favor backfired Starting last summer, Trump and Republican allies undertook an aggressive effort to redraw congressional districts, reconfiguring the lines to give Republican candidates an advantage.
从去年夏天开始，特朗普和共和党盟友发起了一场积极的重新划分国会选区的努力，重新配置选区边界，以给共和党候选人带来优势。中期选举前，共和党重新划分了15个席位以有利于自己。周二选举后，他们似乎将失去除两个席位外的所有席位。“这绝对是错误的举动，”一名不愿具名的共和党众议员告诉福克斯新闻。
Ahead of the midterms, Republicans redrew 15 seats to their advantage. After Tuesday’s election, they appear poised to lose all but two of them. “It was definitely the wrong move,” an unnamed House Republican told Fox News“One of the truisms in politics is never to overreach. We did and that was part of the reason for the backlash.”
“政治中的一条格言是永远不要过度扩张。我们这样做了，而这也是反弹的部分原因。”共和党的失利包括在德克萨斯州、佛罗里达州和北卡罗来纳州的失败，共和党原本希望在这三个州合计赢得多达10个国会席位。
The Republicans losses included defeats in Texas, Florida and North Carolina where Republicans hoped to pick up as many as 10 combined congressional seats.
“地图本身确实失败了，而且失败得相当惨烈，”国家民主重划选区委员会主席约翰·比索尼亚诺说，该组织是一个民主党重划选区团体。“我也认为，其本身的想法是一个更大的失败。让你周围形成这样一种环境，让每个人都开始意识到这个政府有多么腐败，以及他们在选举中有多么害怕美国选民，以至于他们前进的主要战术路径将是重新绘制地图，以窃取尽可能多的选民。”
“The maps themselves did fail, and failed quite epically,” said John Bisognano, the president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a Democratic redistricting group. “I would also argue the idea itself was an even bigger failure. Allowing an environment to be created around you in which everyone begins to realize how deeply corrupt this administration is and how fearful they are of the American people in elections, so much so that their main tactical path forward is going to be to redraw maps to steal as many voters as they can.”
但即使共和党人未能赢得他们重划的几乎所有新席位，哈佛大学教授尼古拉斯·斯蒂芬诺普洛斯表示，说本次选举中选区划分完全没有起作用，将是误导。斯蒂芬诺普洛斯研究重划选区问题。共和党人没有赢得这些席位，是因为民主党在本次中期选举中取得了半个世纪以来最强劲的表现。
But even though Republicans failed to pick up nearly all of the new seats they drew, it would be misleading to say that gerrymandering did not work at all in this election, said Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a professor at Harvard who studies redistricting. Republicans didn’t pick up the seats because Democrats had the strongest midterm elections in half a century.
“与共和党人赢得五个更多席位的梦想相比，所有这些地图都表现不足，”他说。“没有理由将选区划分的最佳情景作为正确的基准。”他补充说，与不偏袒任何一方的公平地图相比，“这些地图中有很多对共和党人来说表现非常好。”比索尼亚诺表示，将选举结果解读为选区划分不是问题，将是一个错误。
“Compared to [GOP] dreams of winning like five more seats, all of these maps under-delivered,” he said. “There’s no reason why the best-case scenario of the gerrymander is the right baseline.”Compared to a fair map that didn’t favor either party, he added, “a lot of these maps performed very well for Republicans.”It would be a mistake to interpret the election results to mean that gerrymandering is not a problem, Bisognano said.
“民主党本不应该需要超常发挥10%到15%，才能取得他们所取得的成功，”他说。“这是一个具有腐蚀性的问题，无论这些选举结果如何，仍然困扰着这个国家，而且他们将会带着更多的问题卷土重来。”以德克萨斯州为例，共和党人已经控制了该州38个国会选区中的25个。去年，他们重新绘制了地图，试图争取多达五个新的国会席位。结果，他们在重划的选区中只赢得了一个。
“Democrats should not have needed to overperform by 10 to 15% in order to find the success that they found,” he said. “It’s a corrosive problem that still plagues this country regardless of these electoral outcomes, and they’re going to come back with more of it.”Texas for example, Republicans already held 25 of the state’s 38 congressional districts. Last year, they redrew the map to try and gain as many as five new congressional seats. They wound up winning just one of the districts they redrew.
这意味着得克萨斯州将占据该州38个国会选区中的24个，尽管民主党人吉娜·希诺霍萨和詹姆斯·塔拉里科在全州范围内获得了超过50%的选票。
That means Texas will hold 24 of the state’s 38 congressional districts, even though Democrats Gina Hinojosa and James Talarico got more than 50% of the vote statewide.
“当共和党人以45%的选票在得克萨斯州赢得65%的席位时，没有人应该认为选区划分失败了。这是选区划分的一次巨大胜利，”斯蒂芬诺普洛斯说。
“Nobody should think gerrymandering failed when Republicans are winning 65% of the seats in Texas with 45% of the vote. That’s a massive victory for a gerrymander,” Stephanopoulos said.
共和党地图绘制者亚当·金凯德绘制了得克萨斯州的选区地图。他说，他一直认为为共和党人重新划分的得克萨斯州席位是竞争性席位。“这些争取的席位并非深深的红色选区。这是有意为之，因为在这样的选举周期里，你不想让那些本不该在秋季面临危险的现任议员陷入危险，”他说。
Adam Kincaid, a Republican mapmaker who drew the Texas maps, said he always saw the seats redrawn for Republicans to pick up in Texas as competitive seats. “The pickup opportunities were not deep, deep red seats. And that was on purpose, because in a cycle like this, you didn’t want to put incumbents in jeopardy going into the fall that otherwise wouldn’t have been in jeopardy,” he said.
可能没有哪个州比北卡罗来纳州更让共和党人遭遇选区划分的反噬了。
There may be no state that had more of a gerrymandering backfire for Republicans than North Carolina.
共和党人原本已经占据了该州14个国会席位中的10个，随后去年重新划分选区，以增加一个共和党席位。新地图使得该州东北部的黑人民主党人唐·戴维斯更难连任。戴维斯成功连任，民主党可能翻转多达六个席位，从而在该州的国会代表团中获得10比4的优势。几名民主党人以微弱优势赢得选举，尽管参选美国参议院的民主党人罗伊·库珀以近20个百分点的优势赢得了他的选举。
Republicans already held 10 of the state’s 14 congressional seats, and then redrew them last year to add an additional Republican seat. The new map made it harder for Don Davis, a Black Democrat in the north-eastern part of the state, to win re-election. Davis won re-election and Democrats may flip as many as six seats, giving them a 10-4 advantage in the state’s delegation. Several Democrats barely won their races, even though Roy Cooper, a Democrat running for US Senate, won his race by nearly 20 points.
在北卡罗来纳州，共和党立法者通过高效分配共和党选票来确立优势——让每个共和党选区都拥有一个在通常选举条件下稳固的防火墙。但当该州出现一波历史性的民主党浪潮时，它完全淹没了这张地图。“重点不是防洪，而是防波，”金凯德说。
In North Carolina, Republican lawmakers drew their advantage by efficiently distributing Republican votes efficiently – giving each GOP district a solid firewall that was durable under usual election conditions. But when the generationally large Democratic wave hit in the state, it completely overwhelmed the map. “The point is not to protect from the flood, it’s to protect from the wave,” Kincaid said.
“任何选区划分，实际上都存在足以淹没该选区划分的选举潮汐。你几乎从未见过那种潮汐，”斯蒂芬诺普洛斯说。“北卡罗来纳州遇到了百年一遇的选举浪潮，恰好冲垮了他们的选区划分。”尽管本次选举中前所未有的民主党浪潮中和了选区划分，但若本十年选举环境重新转向有利于共和党的一方，选区划分仍有望在未来选举中为共和党带来优势。
“With any gerrymander, there’s literally some electoral tide that’s big enough to overwhelm the gerrymander. You almost never see that tide,” Stephanopoulos said. “North Carolina got the once-in-a-50-year wave that happened to wash out their gerrymander.”Even though the unprecedented Democratic wave neutralized gerrymanders this election, they are poised to give Republicans an advantage in future elections this decade should the electoral environment shift back in their favor.
“在佛罗里达州、德克萨斯州以及众多其他地方，如果2028年或2030年选举环境回归更中性的状态，像这样的许多选区都会立刻重新转回共和党手中，”斯蒂芬诺普洛斯说。
“In Florida and in Texas and in numerous other places, if we snap back to a more neutral electoral environment in 2028 or 2030, like a lot of these districts will just flip right back to Republicans,” Stephanopoulos said.