2026-10-04T10:00:45.243Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
公众对唐纳德·特朗普总统动荡的第二任期的反对浪潮正迅速扩大2026年的竞选战场。
民众对其执政表现的不满，让民主党得以在那些他们多年来难以染指的选区——包括蓝领和农村社区——认真争夺国会众议院和参议院席位。
民主党在这些文化保守地区仍面临诸多障碍，但共和党突然开始向阿拉斯加、得克萨斯、艾奥瓦和俄亥俄等长期被视为共和党稳控的州投入大量资金。共和党人正紧张地看着自己的候选人迟迟未能在关税、对伊朗战争等政策上与特朗普划清界限。
长期关注共和党倾向选区选举的资深民主党民调专家约翰·安扎洛内表示，特朗普支持率的下滑为民主党创造了机会，在那些几乎没人料到会具备竞争性的州和选区，包括堪萨斯、内布拉斯加甚至密西西比州的共和党-held参议院席位。安扎洛内说，无论民主党最终能否拿下这些席位，现任资深议员突然面临新晋挑战者的威胁，是浪潮型选举的典型特征——就像1994年那场共和党在时任总统比尔·克林顿混乱的头两年任期后席卷参众两院的大选。
“这场选举更像1994年，我这么说不是指竞争席位的总数，”安扎洛内说，“而是指你会感觉整个美国都成了战场。”正如1994年那样，安扎洛内预测，本次选举将诞生“意外当选的国会议员”——那些几乎无人预料到会获胜的民主党人。
资深共和党民调专家惠特·艾尔斯对共和党前景并不那么悲观，但他对趋势感到担忧，并做好了迎接意外且令人不快的意外事件的准备。“在当前环境下，我认为我们会发现一些此前从未想过会成为战场的州会在11月加入竞争，”艾尔斯说。
民调显示，自特朗普再次就职以来，他的工作支持率在2024年转向他的群体中下滑最为明显，包括年轻男性、拉美裔以及所有没有四年制大学学位的非白人选民。但他在其传统票仓中也出现了裂痕，包括没有大学学位的白人选民、农村选民，以及更认同共和党而非特朗普“让美国再次伟大”运动的传统共和党人。
选举结束后，“我认为会出现多种叙事，”安扎洛内说，“第一种会是拉美裔、非裔和年轻人重新回归民主党。这将是首要叙事。但你也会看到共和党在白人工薪阶层选民中流失；还会看到美国农村地区的选票差距缩小。”
在2024年大选中，特朗普几乎在所有地区都取得了进展：美国约3100个县中，近90%的县他的得票率都比2020年有所提升。距离选举日仅一个月之际，民调显示共和党今年正面临噩梦般的可能性：这一趋势出现逆转——全国所有地区、各种规模和人口构成的县都出现支持率回落。
为更好地梳理2026年不断演变的战场，CNN从六个不同的人口和地理类别中选出了约24个具有代表性的县。选举日当天，这些县在众议院、参议院和州长选举中的结果，将记录下决定2026年选举结果的选民忠诚度趋势。
以下是这六类县的选举夜关注清单。
尽管近期民调中民主党利好消息不断，但他们在少数族裔人口众多的大型城市中心的表现仍是未知数。尽管特朗普2024年在许多城市中心的得票率小幅上升，但时任副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯的得票率在其中许多地区大幅下滑。
有四个县将从不同维度反映民主党能否重建其城市选区优势：
- 韦恩县（以底特律为中心）和俄亥俄州的凯霍加县（以克利夫兰为中心）将印证民主党是否解决了2024年城市黑人选民的投票率问题。2020年，哈里斯在凯霍加县的得票比乔·拜登少4万张，在韦恩县少6万张。
研究黑人选民的民主党民调专家阿尔文·伯纳德·蒂利担心，民主党仍未达到在这些核心城市县所需的得票优势。“相关数据早已存在，”他说，“表明黑人选民投票率可能再次低迷，但人们一直视而不见，因为他们宁愿相信旧的投票动员机制还能奏效。而2024年以来的情况表明，这套机制已经失灵。”
- 塔兰特县是得克萨斯州以沃斯堡为中心的多数族裔非白人县，一直是真正的摇摆地带：2018年参议院选举中以微弱优势支持民主党人贝托·奥罗克，2022年州长选举中则反对他。同样，该县2016年和2024年支持特朗普，2020年支持拜登。曾为共和党参议员约翰·科宁提供咨询的得克萨斯州共和党策略师马特·麦科维阿克表示，塔兰特县将反映传统共和党选民对肯·帕克斯顿的不满——帕克斯顿在共和党参议院初选中击败了科宁。“塔兰特县对帕克斯顿来说将是一场灾难，”麦科维阿克预测，“我这边阵营里稍有头脑的人都认为塔兰特县已经没戏了。”
- 亨内平县（以明尼阿波利斯为中心）比本次清单上的其他县受教育程度更高、更富裕，但2024年民主党得票率同样大幅下滑。该州州长和参议院选举的结果，将衡量受过良好教育的选民对特朗普的反对强度——就在今年早些时候，联邦探员在该市针对大规模移民海关执法局（ICE）的抗议行动中击毙了两名白人中产阶层居民。
这些位于大城市周边、受教育程度高、富裕且以白人为主的县，尤其是在北部州，最早在克林顿1990年代执政时期转向民主党。自特朗普崛起以来，其中大多数县进一步远离共和党——尽管2024年，和其他几乎所有地区一样，由于对拜登政府政绩的失望，这些县大多向右倾斜。
- 俄亥俄州特拉华县（位于哥伦布以北）和沃基沙县（位于密尔沃基以西）均以白人为主，大学毕业生比例远高于全国平均水平，收入也更高。它们还是北部仍倾向共和党的两大郊区县：2024年特朗普以7个百分点的优势赢得特拉华县，在沃基沙县的优势则接近三倍。民主党能否在俄亥俄州参议院（由谢罗德·布朗参选）和州长（艾米·阿克顿参选）选举，以及威斯康星州州长选举（戴维·克劳利参选）中取得进展，将考验特朗普在受过大学教育的选民中不断下滑的支持率让共和党付出了多大代价。
- 以大急流城为中心的肯特县的教育和收入水平更接近全国平均水平。该地区（以及底特律周边更富裕、受教育程度更高的奥克兰县）的选举结果，将为密歇根州参议院和州长选举中的民主党候选人阿卜杜勒·埃尔赛义德和乔斯林·本森传递类似信号。
- 堪萨斯城郊区的约翰逊县非常富裕（家庭收入中位数超过10.9万美元），受教育程度极高（近60%的成年人拥有大学学位）。民主党候选人亚当·汉密尔顿希望打破民主党在堪萨斯州参议院选举中近百年的失利纪录，他的关键在于能否在该县扩大拜登和哈里斯2020年赢得的8个百分点的优势。
尽管许多郊区是二战后作为白人逃离少数族裔集中的市中心的目的地而兴起的，但21世纪以来，受过良好教育的中产阶级和中上阶层郊区不断涌现，且种族多元化，在阳光地带的大都市地区尤为明显。
这些新兴地区的少数族裔人口约占一半或更多，家庭收入中位数和拥有四年制大学学位的成年人比例普遍高于全国平均水平，是民主党在阳光地带地区竞争力提升的关键。民主党参议员乔恩·奥索夫有望在佐治亚州东北部拥有大量黑人、亚裔和拉美裔人口的格温内特县扩大2020年16个百分点的领先优势，以及在其西部人口结构相似的科布县扩大10个百分点的领先优势。埃默里大学政治学家安德拉·吉莱斯皮表示，她将关注共和党支持率的下滑是否会从内圈郊区蔓延到切罗基县和福赛斯县等历来由共和党掌控的亚特兰大远郊地区。
2020年，拜登成为自1948年哈里·杜鲁门以来首位赢得以凤凰城及其郊区为中心的马里科帕县的民主党总统候选人。2022年，该县还以微弱优势支持民主党人凯蒂·霍布斯和马克·凯利分别当选州长和参议员，2024年则在特朗普和民主党参议员鲁文·加列戈之间出现分歧。该县似乎准备在今年11月霍布斯的连任选举中重新倾向民主党。
加利福尼亚州奥兰治县常被称为1960年代现代保守主义运动的发源地。但随着拉美裔和亚裔人口增多，该县已成为摇摆地带：2020年坚定支持拜登，2024年仅以微弱优势支持哈里斯。加州州长选举以及该县多个众议院席位的角逐，将检验特朗普在多大程度上疏远了这些社区。
科林县位于达拉斯以北，种族多元、受教育程度高且非常富裕（家庭收入中位数近12.2万美元），可能是今年最引人关注的郊区熔炉县。该县是帕克斯顿政治生涯的起点，但随着亚裔、拉美裔和黑人选民增多，该县从2016年到2020年逐渐转向蓝色，拜登执政期间又重新倾向共和党。特朗普2024年以9个百分点的优势赢得该县，比四年前的优势扩大了约一倍。共和党得克萨斯州铁路委员会候选人博·弗朗西斯公开的反亚裔言论，可能会在该县庞大的亚裔社区引发强烈反弹。民主党参议院候选人詹姆斯·塔拉里科在科林县以及其他人口众多、种族多元且教育水平高的得克萨斯县——包括登顿县、威廉姆森县和本德堡县——的表现，将决定他的竞选命运。
特朗普2024年最大的得票增长出现在拉美裔人口众多、教育和收入水平极低的县，包括以墨西哥裔为主的里奥格兰德河谷地区的伊达尔戈县（以麦卡伦为中心）和卡梅伦县（以布朗斯维尔为中心）；拥有大量中美洲和南美洲移民的迈阿密-戴德县；以及拥有大量波多黎各和多米尼加裔人口的布朗克斯区。在伊达尔戈县和卡梅伦县，特朗普2024年的得票优势比2016年提升了约40个百分点；哈里斯在迈阿密-戴德县的得票比拜登少了近14万张。在布朗克斯区，民主党得票优势从2016年到2024年下降了23个百分点。
但在对经济感到不满以及对特朗普激进的驱逐移民政策的反对声中，没有哪个群体比拉美裔更强烈地反对特朗普的第二任期。全国民调 routinely显示，60%或更多的拉美裔不认可他的执政表现。专注拉美裔选民的民主党民调机构Equis Research的高级研究主任玛丽亚·迪·弗兰科·基尼奥内斯表示，该机构的民调显示，相当一部分2024年投票给特朗普的拉美裔选民对自己的投票表示后悔或失望。
她说，这种反感正在广泛蔓延，包括拉美裔女性和男性、有无大学学位的选民，以及全国所有地区。“我们看到[这种反感]贯穿了我们追踪的所有地区，”她说。
悬而未决的问题是，这种对特朗普的不满会在多大程度上转化为对民主党的支持——民调专家一致认为，许多拉美裔选民仍对民主党持怀疑态度。
衡量民主党能在多大程度上挽回支持率的关键测试包括：塔拉里科在里奥格兰德河谷各县的表现；该地区三场激烈竞争的众议院选举结果；民主党能否认真挑战共和党众议员玛丽亚·埃尔维拉·萨拉查在其迈阿密选区的席位；以及纽约州州长凯西·霍楚尔在连任竞选期间能否恢复民主党在布朗克斯区的传统优势。
特朗普在大量没有四年制大学学位的白人选民中的主导地位，是他重塑共和党联盟和政治版图的关键。
但尽管特朗普在三次总统选举中都赢得了约三分之二的无大学学位白人选民，在许多全国民调中，他在这一群体中的支持率已降至仅约50%对50%或更低。这些选民 consistently对他在通胀问题上的政绩表示强烈不满，并反对他的关税政策和对伊朗战争。“确实有证据表明他们正在背离特朗普，民主党有机会在这里取得进展，”中间派民主党团体Welcome的政治主任丹·康威说。该团体最近对核心区蓝领选民进行了焦点小组调查。
以下列出的县中，白人占人口绝对多数，仅有约25%-30%的成年人拥有大学学位，家庭收入中位数 consistently低于全国平均水平。在宾夕法尼亚州东北部，缩小共和党在卢泽恩县（威尔克斯-巴里）的传统优势，并在邻近的拉克万纳县（斯克兰顿）重建更大的民主党优势，将是民主党候选人佩奇·科格内蒂在备受关注的众议院选举中击败现任共和党众议员罗伯·布雷斯纳汉的关键。
在俄亥俄州，布朗必须恢复他在洛雷恩县（克利夫兰周边）的得票优势——该优势从他2018年胜选时的18.5个百分点降至2024年竞选失利时的仅5个百分点。（他在俄亥俄州东北部的其他县也面临同样的挑战，例如扬斯敦周边的马霍宁县。）在密歇根州参议院和州长选举中，马科姆县——自1980年代以来就以蓝领“里根民主党人”的故乡闻名——对民主党来说是关键机遇：该县在特朗普参与的三次选举中都坚定支持他，但在特朗普不在竞选名单上时，会倾向其他民主党人，例如即将卸任的州长格蕾琴·惠特默。卡托巴县位于夏洛特西北部，带有更多南方特色，白人福音派基督徒比例远高于北部的蓝领县：通常共和党会在此获得40个百分点的优势，但民主党参议院候选人罗伊·库珀在2020年州长选举中缩小了约10个百分点的差距。
密歇根州立大学美国社区项目主任丹特·奇尼表示，这些蓝领社区的大多数选民“不是意识形态选民，而是觉得游戏对他们不公平，需要有人来修复体制的选民”。他指出，这种信念十年来吸引了许多人支持特朗普。但现在，奇尼说，“他们中的很多人觉得‘他说过会解决一切，但他没有，我也对他感到愤怒’。”
农村地区一直是特朗普时代共和党最后的防线。但就连这座堡垒也可能正在开裂。
特朗普的政策从多个方面挤压了农村经济：关税提高了农业机械和其他关键农业投入品的成本，并扰乱了出口市场；对伊朗战争推高了燃料和化肥价格；去年和解法案中的医疗补助削减威胁到了农村医院；移民执法突袭扰乱了肉类加工厂的运营。“他的这些政策确实对农村选民造成了很大伤害，”堪萨斯州立大学政治学教授纳撒尼尔·伯基德说。与此前的农业危机不同，伯基德指出，农民可以直接将他们的困境与特朗普“主动选择”的政策联系起来——而众议院和参议院的共和党人多次投票支持这些政策。
尽管如此，特朗普政府仍在向农民提供巨额联邦补贴——同时还从和解法案的农村医院基金中拨款。而农村选民可能是共和党反对民主党文化论点的最忠实受众。
对民主党来说，翻特朗普以压倒性优势赢得的农村县并不现实。他们的目标是缩小差距。2024年哈里斯竞选团队的战场州主任丹·坎尼南表示，如果“共和党不是以40个百分点的优势赢得20个农村县，而是仅以18个百分点获胜”，那么在农村人口众多的州，民主党获胜的可能性要大得多。
观察民主党能否缩小共和党在农村地区传统优势的好地方包括：堪萨斯州西南部的福特县（包括肉类加工中心道奇城）；俄亥俄州西部的达克县（依赖玉米、大豆、鸡肉和鸡蛋）；威斯康星州西南部边境的乳制品和玉米大豆中心格兰特县；以及艾奥瓦州东部的斯科特县（主要种植玉米、大豆和生猪）。除了拥有大量拉美裔人口的福特县，这些县绝大多数都是白人，家庭收入中位数低于全国平均水平；除了斯科特县，它们的大学毕业生比例远低于平均水平。
在这些通常由共和党掌控的地区，“关键问题将是投票率，”艾奥瓦州西北部农村报纸《Storm Lake Times Pilot》的编辑阿特·卡伦说。“今年你看不到共和党人的庭院标语和巨大的特朗普广告牌了。标语本身并不代表什么，但它们是选民热情的一个相当不错的晴雨表。”
如今距离选举日仅一个多月，核心动态并非共和党在某一类选区面临更高的脆弱性，而是随着民众对特朗普第二任期的不满情绪升温，共和党必须同时巩固其在所有类别的选区的阵地。今年的关键竞选几乎完全在传统上由共和党掌控的领土上展开，而地图上最红的地区可能会在选举日自然地重新转向共和党。但即便如此，共和党仍有大片战场需要巩固——而且时间已经不多了。
The counties to watch on the massive midterm elections battlefield
2026-10-04T10:00:45.243Z / CNN
The breadth of the public backlash against President Donald Trump’s tumultuous second term is rapidly widening the campaign battlefield for 2026.
Discontent with his performance is allowing Democrats to seriously contest House and Senate seats in places where they have struggled for years — including blue-collar and rural communities.
Democrats still face many hurdles in those culturally conservative places, but Republicans are suddenly pouring money into states such as Alaska, Texas, Iowa, and Ohio that have long seemed secure for the GOP. Republicans are nervously watching their candidates belatedly break from Trump over tariffs, the Iran war and other policies.
John Anzalone, a veteran Democratic pollster who has long focused on races in Republican-leaning terrain, says the erosion of Trump’s support is creating opportunities for Democrats in states and districts that few anticipated could be competitive, including Republican-held Senate seats in Kansas, Nebraska and even Mississippi. Whether or not Democrats ultimately capture those seats, the sudden emergence of late-breaking threats to entrenched incumbents, Anzalone says, is a characteristic feature of wave elections — like the 1994 deluge when Republicans swept into control of both the House and Senate after then-President Bill Clinton’s chaotic first two years in office.
“This feels more like 1994 and what I mean by that is not the total number of seats in play,” Anzalone says. “But it’s that you feel like America is the battleground.” Just as in 1994, Anzalone predicts, this election will produce “accidental members of Congress” — Democrats whose victories almost no one saw coming.
Whit Ayres, a longtime Republican pollster, isn’t as pessimistic about the GOP’s prospects. But he’s worried about the trend lines and bracing for unexpected and unpleasant surprises. “In this environment, I think we are going to find states in play that we never thought would be in play come in November,” Ayres says.
In polling, Trump’s job approval has generally declined the most since he returned to office among the groups that moved the most toward him in 2024, including young men, Latinos and all non-White voters without a four-year college degree. But he’s also suffering cracks in perennial pillars of his coalition, including White voters without college degrees, rural voters, and traditional Republicans who identify more with the party than Trump’s MAGA movement.
Coming out of this election, “I think there is going to be a bunch of narratives,” says Anzalone. “One is going to be that Latinos, African Americans, young people came back to the Democrats. That’s going to be number one. But you are going to see a Republican bleeding of White working-class voters; and you are going to see a narrowing of the vote in rural America.”
In the 2024 election, Trump gained ground almost everywhere; he improved his performance over 2020 in nearly 90% of America’s roughly 3,100 counties. Only one month from Election Day, polls suggest Republicans this year face the nightmare possibility of that tape rolling backwards: a retreat in counties of all sizes and demographic composition, in all regions of the country.
To better map the evolving 2026 battlefield, CNN has identified about two dozen representative counties across six distinct demographic and geographic buckets. Together, the results on Election Day in House, Senate and gubernatorial contests from these six groups of counties will document the trends in voter allegiance that will determine the 2026 outcome.
What follows is a checklist of counties in these six categories to watch on election night.
Amid all the positive news for Democrats in recent polls, their performance in big urban centers with large minority populations remains a question mark. While Trump modestly increased his vote total in many urban centers in 2024, the vote total for then-Vice President Kamala Harris plummeted in many of them.
Four counties will offer different measures of whether Democrats can rebuild their urban strength.
Wayne County (centered on Detroit),like Cuyahoga (Cleveland) in Ohio, will answer whether Democrats have addressed their turnout problems among urban Black voters from 2024. Harris won 40,000 fewer votes than Joe Biden in 2020 in Cuyahoga and 60,000 less in Wayne.
Alvin Bernard Tillery, a Democratic pollster who studies Black voters, worries that Democrats are still not on track to generate the margins they need in these core urban counties. “The data has been there for a while” indicating the risk of another lackluster Black turnout, Tillery says, “but people have been ignoring because they want to believe that the old turnout machine is going to hold. And we have seen since 2024 it’s not holding.”
Tarrant County,a majority non-White Texas county revolving around Ft. Worth, has been true swing territory: it narrowly voted for Democrat Beto O’Rourke in his 2018 Senate race and against him in his 2022 governor race. Likewise, it backed Trump in 2016 and 2024 but Biden in 2020. Matt Mackowiak, a Texas GOP strategist who advised Republican Sen. John Cornyn, says Tarrant will measure the disaffection among traditional Republican voters from Ken Paxton, who beat Cornyn for the GOP Senate nomination. “Tarrant is going to be a bloodbath” for Paxton, Mackowiak predicts. “Most of everyone who has a working brain on my side of the aisle thinks Tarrant is gone.”
Hennepin County, centered on Minneapolis, is better educated and more affluent than the others on this list. Yet the Democratic vote nosedived there too in 2024. Its performance in the Minnesota governor and Senate races will measure the intensity of the well-educated backlash against Trump-in a place where federal agents earlier this year killed two White middle-class residents protesting the massive ICE crackdown in the city.
These well-educated, affluent and majority White counties immediately outside major cities, especially in Northern states, first shifted blue under Bill Clinton in the 1990s. Since Trump’s emergence, most of them have trended further away from the GOP — though in 2024, most of these places, like almost everywhere else, tilted right amid disappointment over Biden’s record.
Delaware in Ohio, north of Columbus, and Waukesha, west of Milwaukee, are each overwhelmingly White, with many more college graduates and much higher incomes than the national average. They are also two of the largest Northern suburbs that still lean Republican: Trump in 2024 won Delaware by seven points and Waukesha by nearly three times that. Whether Democrats can improve in the Ohio Senate (behind Sherrod Brown) and governor (Amy Acton) races and the Wisconsin governor race (with David Crowley) will test how much Trump’s elevated disapproval rating among college-educated voters is costing the GOP.
Kent County, centered on Grand Rapids, is closer to the national average in education and income. The results there, (as well as in Oakland County outside Detroit, which is even more affluent and educated) for Abdul El-Sayed and Jocelyn Benson, the Democrats in the Michigan Senate and governor races, will send similar signals.
Improving on the eight-point margins amassed by Biden and Harris in prosperous (the median income exceeds $109,000), very well-educated Johnson County (nearly 60% of adults hold college degrees) in the Kansas City suburbs will be key to Democrat Adam Hamilton’s hope of breaking the party’s nearly 100-year losing streak in Kansas Senate races.
While many suburbs initially developed after World War II as the destination for “White flight” from heavily minority central cities, the 21st century has seen the emergence of well-educated, middle to upper-middle class suburbs that are also racially diverse, especially in big Sunbelt metropolitan areas.
These growing areas — where minorities constitute about half the population or more and the median income and share of adults with a four-year college degree both generally exceed the national average — have been essential to the Democrats’ increased competitiveness across the Sunbelt. Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff looks poised to expand on his 2020 margin of 16 points in Gwinnett County, with its large Black, Asian and Latino population northeast of Atlanta and his 10-point edge in demographically similar Cobb Countyto its west. Emory University political scientist Andra Gillespie says she’ll be watching whether the Republican decline extends beyond the inner-ring suburbs to reliably red Atlanta exurbs including Cherokee and Forsyth.
In 2020, Biden became the first Democratic presidential nominee since Harry Truman in 1948 to win Maricopa County, centered on Phoenix and its suburbs. It also narrowly backed Democrats Katie Hobbs and Mark Kelly for governor and Senator in 2022, before it split between Trump and Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego in 2024. The county looks ready to lean back toward Democrats in Hobbs’ reelection this November.
Orange County, California is often described as the birthplace of the modern conservative movement during the 1960s. But with its large Latino and Asian populations it has become a battleground that voted solidly for Biden in 2020, but only narrowly for Harris in 2024. The California governor race, and multiple House seats across the county, will test how deeply Trump has alienated those communities.
Diverse, well-educated and very affluent (with a median income of nearly $122,000), Collin County north of Dallas may be this year’s most intriguing suburban melting pot. The county is where Paxton started his political career; but with its substantial Asian, Latino and Black populations it trended blue from 2016 to 2020, before reverting toward the GOP under Biden. Trump won it in 2024 by nine points, about double his margin four years before. The open anti-Asian racism of Bo French, the GOP nominee for the Texas Railroad Commission, could produce a significant backlash in its large Asian community. How far Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico advances in Collin — and other populous Texas counties that combine high diversity and high education levels, including Denton, Williamson and Fort Bend, may determine his fate.
Trump made many of his biggest 2024 gains in counties with large Latino populations and very modest levels of education and income, including the preponderantly Mexican-American Rio Grande Valley counties of Hidalgo (centered on McAllen) and Cameron (Brownsville); Miami-Dade, with its large contingent of central and South Americans; and the Bronx, with its vibrant Puerto Rican and Dominican populations.In both Hidalgo and Cameron, Trump in 2024 improved his margin by about 40 points compared to 2016; Harris won nearly 140,000 fewer votes in Miami-Dade than Biden did. In the Bronx, the Democratic margin declined by 23 points from 2016-2024.
But amid frustration over the economy and backlash against his aggressive deportation drive, no major group has recoiled from Trump more sharply in his second term than Latinos. National polls routinely show 60% or more of them disapprove of his job performance. Maria Di Franco Quinonez, senior research director at Equis Research, a Democratic polling firm focusing on Latinos, says that in the group’s polling a substantial minority of Trump’s 2024 Latino supporters express regret or disappointment about their vote.
That recoil, she says, is unfolding broadly, among both Latino women and men, voters with and without a four-year college degree, and in all areas of the country. “We are seeing [it] cut across all the regions we track,” she says.
The open question is how much the disenchantment with Trump translates into support for Democrats who many of these Latino voters, pollsters agree, still view with suspicion.
Key tests of how much Democrats can recover will include: Talarico’s performance in the Rio Grande Valley counties; the outcome of three hotly contested House races there; whether Democrats can seriously threaten Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar in her Miami area district; and whether New York Gov. Kathy Hochul restores the party’s traditional edge in the Bronx during her reelection campaign.
Trump’s dominance in places populated by large numbers of White voters without a four-year college degree has been the key to his reconfiguration of the GOP coalition — and the political map.
But while Trump carried about two-thirds of White voters without a four-year degree in each of his three presidential bids, his approval rating among them in many national polls has fallen to only about 50-50 or less. These voters consistently express intense disappointment with his record on inflation, and opposition to his tariffs and the Iran war. “There is definitely evidence of them backing away and there is an opportunity for Democrats to make gains there,” says Dan Conway, political director of Welcome, a centrist Democratic group that recently conducted focus groups of heartland blue-collar voters.
In the counties listed below, Whites represent a clear majority of the population, only about 25%-30% of adults hold college degrees, and the median income consistently lags the national average. In Northeast Pennsylvania, narrowing the traditional GOP margin in Luzerne (Wilkes-Barre) while rebuilding a bigger Democratic advantage in neighboring Lackawanna (Scranton) will be the key to Democrat Paige Cognetti’s hopes of unseating first-term Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan in a closely watched House race.
In Ohio, Brown must restore his margin in Lorain, outside Cleveland, after it tumbled from 18.5 points in his 2018 win to just five points in his 2024 loss. (He faces the same challenge in Northeastern Ohio counties such as Mahoning around Youngstown.) In the Michigan Senate and governor races, Macomb County—fabled since the 1980s as the home of blue-collar “Reagan Democrats — represents a critical opportunity for Democrats: It has solidly backed Trump in all three of his races, but leaned toward other Democrats, such as outgoing Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, when he wasn’t on the ballot. Catawba County northwest of Charlotte adds a southern spin, with far more White evangelical Christians than its northern blue-collar counterparts: It usually gives Republicans a 40-point margin, but Roy Cooper, the Democratic Senate nominee, shaved that by about 10 points in his 2020 gubernatorial win.
Most voters in these blue-collar communities “are not ideological voters; they are voters who feel like the game is rigged against them and somebody needs to fix the system,” says Dante Chinni, director of the American Communities Project at Michigan State University. That conviction, he notes, has drawn many of them to Trump for a decade. But now, Chinni says, “a lot of them [are feeling] that ‘he said he was going to fix everything and he didn’t, and I’m mad at him, too.’”
Rural America has been the GOP’s last line of defense in the Trump era. But even that fortress may be cracking.
Trump’s policies have squeezed the rural economy from multiple directions. Tariffs have raised the cost of farm machinery and other key agricultural inputs, and disrupted export markets. The Iran war has spiked the cost of fuel and fertilizer. The Medicaid cuts in last year’s reconciliation bill threaten rural hospitals. Immigration enforcement raids have disrupted meat packing operations. “He’s really hurt the rural voters quite a bit with all of this,” says Nathaniel Birkhead, professor of political science at Kansas State University. And unlike earlier agriculture crises, Birkhead notes, farmers can directly link their stress to policies that Trump “chose to do” — and that House and Senate Republicans have repeatedly voted to support.
Still, the Trump administration is channeling massive federal subsidies to farmers — while also doling out grants from the reconciliation bill’s fund for rural hospitals. And rural voters may be the most receptive audience anywhere for the GOP’s cultural arguments against Democrats.
For Democrats, it’s not realistic to flip the rural counties Trump won by astronomical margins. Their goal is to lose by less. Dan Kanninen, the battleground states director for Harris in 2024, says the math in states with big rural populations looks much more achievable for Democrats if “instead of winning 20 rural counties by 40 points, Republicans win them only by 18 points.”
Good places to watch whether Democrats can narrow the traditional GOP rural margins will include Ford County in southwest Kansas, which includes the meat packing center of Dodge City; Darke County in western Ohio, which relies on corn, soybeans, chicken and eggs; Grant County, a dairy, corn and soybean center on the southwestern border of Wisconsin; and Scott County in eastern Iowa, which mostly produces corn, soybeans and hogs. Except for Ford, which includes a large Latino population, these counties are overwhelmingly White with a lower median income than the national average; except for Scott, they have many fewer college grads than average.
Across these normally Republican areas, “The issue will be turnout,” says Art Cullen, editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot in rural Northwest Iowa. “[This year] you just don’t see the Republican yard signs and the huge Trump signs. Signs don’t mean that much, but they are a pretty decent barometer of voter enthusiasm.”
With the election now only a little over one month away, the key dynamic isn’t that the GOP is facing elevated vulnerability in any one of these groupings. It’s that the party must simultaneously fortify its position in all of them as the wave of dissatisfaction with Trump’s second term builds. This year’s key races are being fought almost entirely on traditionally Republican terrain, and the reddest places on that map may naturally drift back toward the GOP by Election Day. But that still leaves a big battlefield for Republicans to reinforce — and not much time to do it.
发表回复