2026-09-25T04:01:29.537Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/25/politics/trump-republicans-midterms-iran-economy
要理解共和党在中期选举前明显陷入的困境，有一个简单的思路。
CNN/SSRS最新民调显示，选民越来越清楚自己想要什么。而唐纳德·特朗普总统要么做不到，要么不愿意满足他们的需求。
全国上下都渴望经济纾困。民众认为食品杂货和住房价格过高。周四抵押贷款利率突破7%，更是让这一压力雪上加霜。
随着工资贬值速度加快，美国人对引发通胀的头号因素之一——伊朗战争愈发愤怒。即便共和党选民，也在汽油和柴油价格飙升之际，对这场冲突的信心不断流失。
同时，民众对人工智能的发展愈发感到担忧。在科技巨头近期警告称他们的这项发明可能威胁人类之后，这种担忧也就不足为奇了。
然而在这三大议题以及其他诸多问题上，特朗普提出的方案与大多数美国人的诉求恰好背道而驰。
他描绘出一个只有他能带来的经济“黄金时代”，并虚假地坚称他已经大幅压低了食品价格。至于通胀，他将其归咎于乔·拜登——这位已经卸任19个月的前总统。
这也解释了共和党所处的噩梦般政治环境。本周CNN/SSRS民调中，仅有27%的受访者对特朗普处理经济事务的能力有信心。同样只有极少数人认为当前经济状况良好。可怜那些处境岌岌可危的共和党候选人，因为三分之二的受访民众表示，经济对他们11月的投票“极为重要”。
CNN民调还显示，四分之三的美国人认为总统没有制定退出这场即将进入第七个月的战争的计划。周三在联合国大会的演讲中，他印证了这一点。他透露自己在“彻底摧毁”伊朗还是与伊朗达成协议之间摇摆不定。他含糊其辞地预测这场冲突将在中期选举后以某种方式结束，这根本无法安抚三分之二认为美国没有取胜的民众。仅有26%的人认可他对战争的处理方式。
在人工智能问题上，特朗普再次选择了注定会疏远最多选民的立场。他周四在社交媒体上写道：“我想让它维持现状。”而七成美国人认为政府应加强对人工智能的监管，他们的诉求显然落空了。
总统不该只因某项政策受欢迎就去推行。有时，背离选民的意愿恰恰体现了原则与勇气。政客们常被指责只会先看民调结果，再决定关键议题的立场。但特朗普并非如此。
但他似乎已经忘记，在2024年的竞选活动中，降低物价和避免卷入新战争是他吸引选民的核心主张。他兑现了竞选的第三大支柱——确保南部边境安全，但严厉的驱逐突袭行动可能正在疏远关键的温和派和西班牙裔选民。
一贯采取否认选民所感受到的痛苦、或拒绝倾听他们的恐惧的立场——比如他们可能因人工智能失业——在民主政治体系中几乎算不上成功之道。特朗普更愿意将政治资本投入到他更在意的事情上，比如他提议在华盛顿建造的凯旋门，这集中体现了他以自我为中心的第二任期愿景。这表明他身边尽是在公开场合对他极尽赞美之词的白宫官员和内阁成员，他已陷入孤立。
首次任期内的中期选举往往会让被认为未兑现承诺的总统遭到抨击，巴拉克·奥巴马总统在2010年就深有体会。第二任期的中期选举往往会让精力耗尽的现任政府受挫，暴露出选民渴望变革的心态，乔治·W·布什总统在2006年就领教过这一点。
特朗普在卸任四年后赢得了非连任性质的第二任期，他可能会同时遭遇这两种情况最糟糕的局面。
对于在绝望的政治氛围中参选、且深受一位极不受欢迎的总统拖累的共和党候选人而言，这两种情况其实并无区别。
尽管自己不受欢迎，特朗普仍决心将自己塑造成竞选活动的核心，这使得民主党挑战者很容易将现任共和党对手与他的政绩绑定在一起。
民主党人特洛伊·杰克逊正参选挑战缅因州参议员苏珊·柯林斯，他在7月警告称，共和党人如果辩称经济状况强劲，就是把选民当成“傻子”。他说：“我们都有眼睛，我们能看到自己的工资和账单，我们知道自己正被压榨，也知道该怪谁。”
佐治亚州寻求连任的参议员乔恩·奥索夫用简洁的言辞将战争与物价上涨联系起来。他在亚特兰大的竞选集会上说：“他承诺上任第一天就降低物价，还承诺实现和平。”奥索夫指责特朗普“在我们深陷一场他既不知如何结束也不知如何取胜的战争之际，只为自己建造纪念碑”。
民主党人还抨击共和党支持庞大且耗电的人工智能数据中心，称这是特朗普的科技巨头盟友在普通民众受苦时牟利的又一手段。宾夕法尼亚州国会候选人、斯克兰顿市市长佩奇·科涅蒂在最近的竞选广告中说：“别抬高我们的电费，别污染我们的水源，雇佣当地的工会劳工。如果你做不到，那就别参选了。”
但民主党也有预警信号。
2026年，反特朗普立场或许就足够了。但民调显示，在2024年总统大选这场闹剧之后，民主党尚未赢回选民的信任——当时拜登中途退选，副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯输给了特朗普。
CNN最新民调显示，选民对民主党支持率领先共和党8个百分点。但这比特朗普首届任期内2018年中期选举民主党夺回众议院前的同期民调结果少了4个百分点。国会民主党人的受欢迎程度并不比共和党同行高多少，仅有约四分之一的美国人认可他们的表现。尽管民主党在掌权后将改善医疗保健政策方面拥有10个百分点的优势，但选民在是否能改善生活成本、公民财务状况、腐败问题或外交政策上存在分歧。
这一切都发生在民主党内部进步派、民主社会主义者与更靠近政治中间派的温和派成员之间意识形态斗争愈演愈烈的背景下。明年如果民主党在众议院或参议院仅占微弱多数，可能会出现与过去两年阻碍共和党众议院立法议程的分歧如出一辙的局面。
民调仅能反映当前的民意快照。除伊朗、人工智能和经济之外的其他因素可能会在竞选后期发生变化。与此同时，民主党人担心，他们在民调中的领先优势必须经受住共和党捐赠者和特朗普竞选金库的巨额资金冲击。而且，在11月3日投票开始前，没人能真正了解前来投票的选民到底是哪些人。
然而，特朗普的问题如此棘手，共和党几乎没有希望快速扭转局面。而许多州的提前投票将在10月初至中旬开始。
距离选举还有五周时间，全国民众对现任领导层不满，也尚未相信任何替代人选能够缓解其面临的根本性挑战。
Trump’s odd midterm strategy: Give voters the opposite of what they want
2026-09-25T04:01:29.537Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/25/politics/trump-republicans-midterms-iran-economy
There’s a simple way to understand Republicans’ apparent plight ahead of the midterm elections.
New CNN/SSRS polls show that voters are increasingly clear about what they want. And President Donald Trump can’t or won’t give it to them.
The country craves economic relief. People think groceries and the roofs over their heads are too expensive. The vise tightened Thursday when mortgage rates rose above 7%.
With their wages disappearing more quickly, Americans are even more angry about one of the top causes — the Iran war. Even GOP voters are increasing losing confidence in the conflict amid soaring gasoline and diesel prices.
And citizens are increasingly fearful about advances in artificial intelligence. That’s no wonder after recent warnings from tech chiefs that their brainchild could threaten humanity.
Yet on this trio of issues, and many others, Trump is offering a program that is exactly opposite of what most Americans want.
He’s evoking an economic “golden age” which only he can see. He insists, falsely, that he’s bought food prices way down. As for inflation, it’s the fault of Joe Biden — who left the presidency 19 months ago.
This explains Republicans’ nightmare political environment. Only 27% in a CNN/SSRS survey this week expressed confidence in Trump’s handling of the economy. A similarly tiny cohort thought that economic conditions are good. Pity vulnerable Republicans, because two-thirds of Americans polled said the economy is “extremely important” to their vote in November.
The CNN polls also show that three-quarters of Americans don’t think the president has a plan to exit a war that’s about to enter its seventh month. On Wednesday, in a speech at the UN General Assembly, he proved them right. He revealed that he was hovering between an effort to “annihilate” Iran or to make a deal with it. His woolly prediction that the conflict will somehow end after the midterms won’t reassure two-thirds of Americans who think the US is not winning. Only 26% approve of his handling of the war.
On AI, Trump has again chosen the side of the issue guaranteed to alienate the largest crop of voters. “I want to leave it exactly where it is,” he wrote on social media Thursday. The 7 in 10 Americans who say the government should regulate it more are out of luck.
Presidents shouldn’t do things just because they are popular. Sometimes, tacking away from voters shows principles and courage. Often politicians are accused of looking at the polls, then deciding on a key issue. That’s not Trump.
But he does seem to have forgotten that lowering prices and staying out of new wars was key to his appeal in 2024. He’s honored a third pillar of his campaign — securing the southern border — but draconian deportation raids may be alienating critical moderate and Hispanic voters.
Consistently taking positions that deny the pain voters feel or refusing to listen to their fears — for instance, that they may lose their jobs to AI — is hardly a recipe for success in a democratic political system. Trump’s preference to use his political capital on things he cares about more — like his proposed triumphal arch in Washington — epitomizes his self-referential second term. It suggests he’s isolated amid West Wing officials and Cabinet members who shower him in endless public praise.
Midterm elections in a first term often result in a rebuke of a president who’s perceived as not living up to his promises, as President Barack Obama found out in 2010. Second-term midterms often dent a presidency running out of steam and reveal an electorate pining for change, as President George W. Bush learned in 2006.
Trump, after winning a nonconsecutive second term following four years out of office, risks experiencing the worst of both these worlds.
For GOP candidates running in a desperate political climate and saddled by a deeply unpopular president, the distinction hardly matters.
The president’s determination to make himself the focus of the campaign despite his unpopularity means it’s easy for Democratic challengers to pin their incumbent GOP rivals with his record.
Democrat Troy Jackson, running to oust Maine Sen. Susan Collins, warned in July that Republicans take voters for “idiots” when they argue the economy is strong. “We all have eyes, we can see our paychecks and the bills that we have and we know that we are getting screwed and we also know who is to blame,” he said.
Sen. Jon Ossoff, seeking reelection in Georgia, has coined snappy phrases to link the war with higher costs. “He promised to lower prices on Day 1, and he also promised peace,” Ossoff said at an Atlanta campaign rally, accusing Trump of building a “monument to himself while plunging us deeper into a war he doesn’t know how to end or how to win.”
Democrats also slam Republicans over vast, power-guzzling AI data centers, painting them as another way Trump’s big tech friends profit while regular Americans suffer. “Don’t raise our electric bills, don’t poison our water, and hire local union labor. If you can’t meet that, then get out,” Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, who is running for Congress in Pennsylvania, said in a recent campaign ad.
But there are warning signs for Democrats.
In 2026, being anti-Trump may be enough. But polls show the party is yet to win back voters’ confidence after its farcical 2024 presidential campaign, when Biden pulled out late and Vice President Kamala Harris lost to Trump.
CNN’s latest polling found that voters prefer Democrats over the GOP by 8 points. But that is 4 points less than at the equivalent moment in Trump’s first term, ahead of Democrats’ recapture of the House in the 2018 midterms. Congressional Democrats are no more popular than their GOP counterparts, with only about one-quarter of Americans registering approval. And while Democrats enjoy a 10-point edge on whether they’d improve health care policy if handed power, voters are split on whether they’d improve the cost of living, citizens’ finances, corruption or foreign policy.
This comes against the backdrop of the Democratic Party’s quickening ideological battle between progressives and democratic socialists and more moderate members closer to the political center. A narrow Democratic majority in the House or Senate next year could experience a mirror image of the splits that hampered the GOP House’s legislative agenda over the last two years.
Polls offer only a current snapshot of opinion. And other factors beyond Iran, AI and the economy could break late in the campaign. Democrats, meanwhile, worry that their lead in the polls must withstand an avalanche of cash from GOP donors and Trump’s war chest. And no one can know the true nature of the electorate that will show up until November 3.
Yet Trump’s problems are so intractable there’s little hope of a quick turnaround for the GOP. And early voting starts in early- and mid-October in many states.
Five weeks out, the country is unhappy with the leadership that it has, and is yet to be convinced that any replacement will ease its fundamental challenges.
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