2026-09-27T10:00:30.008Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
2026年中期选举的结果将主要取决于共和党能否在民主党瞄准的越来越多的共和党掌控的众议院和参议院席位上做好防守。但共和党也希望通过拿下民主党目前掌控的一些众议院和参议院席位来发起进攻。
凭借重新划分选区的策略，共和党比中期选举中在野党通常拥有更多机会拿下对方掌控的众议院席位。在参议院，共和党正认真瞄准四个民主党掌控的席位。但在参众两院，总统唐纳德·特朗普支持率的暴跌不仅威胁到众多共和党在任议员，也让共和党拿下众多民主党席位的前景变得黯淡。
共和党在资金上的巨大优势足以让他们迫使民主党投入资源保卫现有席位——这本身对共和党就是一项利好。但在中期选举中，在野党要拿下对方掌控的席位向来并非易事。而在这场以对总统执政表现不满浪潮为特征的中期选举中，情况尤其如此——而这正是今年正在形成的选举环境。
在近五十年里，掌控白宫的政党在众议院选举中经历了五次全面溃败。每一次，在输掉数十个本党席位的同时，在野党都难以将对方的多名议员赶下台。
在罗纳德·里根1982年、比尔·克林顿1994年、巴拉克·奥巴马2010年和特朗普2018年的“浪潮型”中期选举中，在野党拿下的对方掌控的众议院席位从未超过四个。2006年，乔治·W·布什执政期间民主党拿下众议院多数席位时，共和党未拿下任何一个民主党掌控的众议院席位。（2022年乔·拜登执政期间民主党在众议院损失相对较小，该党拿下了四个共和党掌控的席位。）
共和党有充分理由期待今年能打破这一惨淡纪录。全国共和党国会委员会（NRCC）正式将36个民主党掌控的众议院席位列为目标。
在当前的选举环境下，民主党并不太担心共和党能在他们瞄准的12个2024年总统大选中投给卡玛拉·哈里斯的选区击败民主党候选人。主要的众议院选举预测机构也普遍认为共和党在这些选区胜算不大。
今年共和党拿下席位的核心机会，是22名民主党候选人在2024年投给特朗普的选区参选。其中约三分之二的选区所在州，共和党已重新划分国会选区地图以提升本党胜算。
经过此番选区划分操作，今年在特朗普赢下的选区参选的民主党议员人数，将大致相当于2018年23名共和党议员在两年前希拉里·克林顿赢下的选区参选的人数。
2018年，民主党在这23个希拉里选区击败了20名共和党议员。这一先例支撑了共和党对拿下比往常更多席位的乐观态度。“2018年，民主党夺回了他们的地盘，”全国共和党国会委员会新闻发言人迈克·马里内拉说道，“如今在2026年，情况几乎完全反过来了：民主党人正在特朗普的地盘‘租’选区参选，我们将全力以赴在11月让共和党选民回归本党。”
但共和党要复刻2018年民主党在分裂票仓选区的压倒性表现，面临诸多障碍。今年，共和党在六个选区占据明显优势——新的选区地图迫使民主党在特朗普得票率约57%或更高的选区参选（不过民主党和一些独立分析师并未完全排除民主党在任议员爆冷获胜的可能，比如阿拉巴马州的肖马里·菲格尔斯和佛罗里达州的达伦·索托，或是休斯顿附近的一个开放选区）。
不过，剩余16名在特朗普得票率55%或更低的选区参选的民主党人，表现比许多分析师最初预期的更具竞争力。2018年，试图在希拉里赢下的选区击败共和党议员的民主党人，拥有对特朗普不满的巨大助力。反之，如今试图在特朗普赢下的选区击败民主党议员的共和党人，则面临着对总统不满的逆风。
众议院多数党政治行动委员会（House Majority PAC）是投资众议院选举的主要民主党超级政治行动委员会，其传播总监CJ·沃克表示，在该委员会的民调中，特朗普的支持率“在各个战场选区都不同程度地处于下滑状态”。这意味着即便在2024年特朗普赢下的选区，与他绑定可能在2026年更多地成为拖累而非助力。
共和党在选区划分中重划的南得克萨斯州三个拉丁裔人口占比极高的国会选区，恰恰体现了共和党面临的挑战。州共和党人重新调整了民主党议员亨利·奎瓦尔和文森特·冈萨雷斯掌控的里奥格兰德河谷选区，以及圣安东尼奥以南的另一个民主党选区，使得这三个选区在2024年特朗普凭借在拉丁裔选民中的压倒性优势赢得了约55%的支持率。
但特朗普在该地区的支持率已经下滑。德克萨斯南方大学近期的民调显示，在奎瓦尔和冈萨雷斯的选区，约55%的选民如今不认可他的执政表现。（该民调未涵盖圣安东尼奥地区的选区。）
“任何做过民调的人都很清楚……总统在南得克萨斯州的人气肯定不如两年前了，”运营着“红色德州计划”（一家致力于在南得克萨斯州发展本党势力的组织）的共和党顾问韦恩·汉密尔顿说道。
尽管特朗普加强南部边境管控的举措在南得克萨斯州广受好评，但他的强力驱逐行动引发了强烈反弹。或许更具破坏性的是伊朗局势引发的燃油价格上涨。
约翰尼·加西亚是贝萨尔县的副警长，同时也是圣安东尼奥地区众议院席位的民主党候选人。他在采访中用西班牙语俚语指代卡车，指出对许多拉丁裔男性而言，“一辆炫酷的小卡车，配着30英寸升高的轮胎和响亮的排气管”是极大的骄傲。“而现在，”加西亚补充道，“我们看到，在本届政府治下，那辆小卡车只能停在车道上，他们不得不开妻子的迷你货车，因为他们没钱给那油箱加油。”
汉密尔顿表示，在民众对经济和移民执法感到不满的背景下，共和党在这些选区的最佳武器，是提醒选民他们为何在2024年拒绝民主党。“人们不想回到过去，”汉密尔顿说道，“共和党必须努力……向（选民）展示，你们的生活因共和党在边境恢复法治和促进经济发展而变得更好。”
但当民众对特朗普治下的现状深感不满时，引导选民关注他们对拜登的不满可能会很困难。帮助管理德克萨斯南方大学民调的莱斯大学政治科学家马克·琼斯表示，选区划分操作基于一个错误假设，即特朗普2024年在南得克萨斯州的强劲表现代表了共和党新的可靠基本盘。琼斯反而表示，“我们如今在得克萨斯州看到的情况是，共和党在拉丁裔选民中的支持率回归到正常水平，即赢得约40%的选票。”
在这种环境下，大多数独立分析师认为奎瓦尔和冈萨雷斯有望连任，而加西亚尽管仍然不被看好，但仍有爆冷获胜的合理机会。
佛罗里达州的民主党战略家史蒂夫·沙尔表示，类似的支持率回归正让共和党在该州的选区划分操作变得复杂。尽管共和党仍有望击败索托，并且在另一个被重新划得更趋红色的开放民主党选区可能占据微弱优势，但民主党在任议员凯西·卡斯特和贾里德·莫斯科维茨在特朗普轻松赢下的选区表现出惊人的竞争力。“共和党打了个赌……认为2022年和2024年的佛罗里达州就是永久的佛罗里达州，”沙尔说道。
他表示，如果共和党支持率今年保持在该水平，共和党将至少拿下三个甚至四个他们瞄准的民主党席位。但他补充道，“如果你和我一样认为现实处于中间状态——正常情况下，佛罗里达州确实与2018年和2020年不同，但不像2024年那么共和党化——那么这些选区中的许多都相当摇摆不定。”
许多其他民主党掌控、特朗普2024年仅以微弱优势赢下的选区，情况也大同小异。即便在中立的政治环境下，其中大多数选区也可能对共和党有利。但随着特朗普的支持率跌至历史最低点，2026年的选举环境绝非中立。
共和党人自信这些选区的选民对民主党有着根深蒂固的不信任，尤其是在文化议题上，这种不信任将在选举日重新浮现。“他们未能向选民提供可行的替代方案，”马里内拉说道。但共和党人的开支决策表明他们的态度更为谨慎：据Politico上周分析的AdImpact数据，自8月1日以来，共和党候选人和委员会在保卫共和党掌控席位的广告上花费了近10倍于 targeting民主党选区广告的资金（4.85亿美元 vs 5000万美元）。
自20世纪80年代以来，在野党拿下对方掌控的参议院席位甚至更加困难。在1990年、1994年、2006年、2010年和2014年的中期选举中，在野党未拿下任何一个对方掌控的参议院席位。在1982年、1986年和2022年，在野党仅拿下了一个对方掌控的参议院席位。
1998年克林顿执政期间，民主党拿下了三个共和党掌控的参议院席位；而小布什执政期间，共和党在2002年拿下了两个民主党席位。但这两次选举中，两位总统的支持率都异常高，达到约65%。
共和党2018年的经历提供了一个变体：即便输掉了众议院，共和党当年还是拿下了四名民主党参议员。但这四次共和党胜利都发生在特朗普2020年赢下的州——且出口民调显示，这些州特朗普的支持率仍高于50%，远高于他在全国选民中45%的支持率。
共和党今年最初希望角逐四个民主党掌控的参议院席位：特朗普2024年赢下的佐治亚州和密歇根州，以及特朗普输掉的明尼苏达州和新罕布什尔州。随着民主党参议员乔恩·奥索夫在民调中持续领先因丑闻缠身的共和党候选人迈克·柯林斯，佐治亚州实际上已经退出了共和党的目标清单。
剩余三个共和党有机会的席位均为开放选区。与2018年不同的是，如今特朗普在密歇根州和新罕布什尔州的支持率已远低于50%。（明尼苏达州暂无符合CNN标准的近期公开民调，但两党战略家一致认为特朗普在该州的支持率也处于下滑状态。）
共和党正以不同的方式希望将明尼苏达州和新罕布什尔州的选举与全国环境脱钩，将辩论聚焦于本地议题。
在明尼苏达州，即将卸任的民主党州长蒂姆·瓦尔兹卷入的福利欺诈丑闻，损害了副州长佩吉·弗拉纳根的形象——她是民主党提名的参议员候选人，将对阵前ESPN体育解说员、共和党候选人米歇尔·塔福亚。在新罕布什尔州，前共和党参议员约翰·苏努努自2008年连任失败后已脱离公职，他一直与特朗普保持距离，并试图借助家族姓氏在当地的人气：他的父亲和兄长都曾担任广受欢迎的新罕布什尔州州长。
新罕布什尔大学政治科学家丹特·斯卡拉表示，他相信“苏努努和他的盟友们目前已经尽了最大努力”。但他补充道，鉴于特朗普如今在该州如此不受欢迎，“我确实认为最终这些基本盘因素将超过苏努努的战术操作”。民主党参议院候选人、众议员克里斯·帕帕斯或许不如对手“亮眼”，但斯卡拉表示，在这样一个倾向民主党的州，“我认为‘稳固’今年已经足够了”。
密歇根州的情况则不同。在该州，民主党提名了令人振奋但立场两极分化的左翼候选人阿卜杜勒·埃尔赛义德，对阵前共和党众议员迈克·罗杰斯——罗杰斯曾在2024年险些赢得参议院席位。在民调中，埃尔赛义德面临的选民阻力始终高于温和派民主党州长候选人乔斯林·本森。
但在大多数民调中，特朗普在密歇根州的不支持率逼近60%，“我只是认为在当前的环境下，罗杰斯要获胜难度极大”，弗吉尼亚大学政治中心萨巴托水晶球的总编辑凯尔·康迪克说道，“明尼苏达州和新罕布什尔州也是如此。显然这些竞争激烈，但在这种气候下，我不认为它们真的是势均力敌的摇摆选区。”
在任何以对总统不满为特征的选举年，说服选民通过将对方政党议员赶下台来为总统在国会增添盟友，向来都很困难。选区划分操作给共和党带来了比往常更多的拿下席位机会——但不足以从根本上改变这一持久的选举法则。
Where Republicans are playing offense ahead of the midterms
2026-09-27T10:00:30.008Z / CNN
The outcome of the 2026 election will be determined primarily by how well Republicans play defense across the growing list of GOP-held House and Senate seats Democrats are targeting. But the GOP is also hoping to play offense by flipping some House and Senate seats Democrats now control.
Because of their redistricting maneuvers, Republicans have more opportunities to flip House seats held by the other side than is typical for the president’s party in midterm elections. In the Senate, Republicans are seriously targeting four Democratic-held seats. But in both chambers, the same collapse in President Donald Trump’s approval rating that is threatening so many GOP incumbents is dimming the party’s prospects of unseating many Democrats.
The Republican financial advantage is large enough that the party can afford to force Democrats to commit resources defending seats they now hold — which is itself a benefit for the GOP. But it has never been easy during a midterm for the president’s party to flip seats held by the other side. And that has been especially true in midterms defined by a wave of discontent with the president’s performance — the conditions that appear to be coalescing this year.
Over nearly the past five decades, the party holding the White House has faced five full-scale wipeouts in House elections. Each time, while losing dozens of their own House seats, the president’s party has struggled to oust many legislators on the other side.
The president’s party flipped no more than four House seats held by the other side during the “wave” midterm elections under Ronald Reagan in 1982, Bill Clinton in 1994, Barack Obama in 2010 and Trump in 2018. In 2006, while losing the House under George W. Bush, Republicans did not capture a single Democratic-held seat. (Amid the more modest Democratic House losses in 2022 under Joe Biden, the party flipped four Republican-held seats.)
Republicans have legitimate reason to expect they can improve on that humble record this year. The National Republican Congressional Committee is officially targeting three dozen Democratic-held seats.
In this environment, Democrats don’t worry too much about Republicans defeating any of the dozen Democrats they are targeting in districts that voted for Kamala Harris in 2024. The major House race forecasters also generally give the GOP modest odds in those seats.
The core of this year’s GOP pick-up opportunity is the 22 Democrats running in seats that voted for Trump in 2024. About two-thirds of those seats are in states where Republicans have redrawn the congressional maps to improve their chances.
After that gerrymandering offensive, the number of Democrats in Trump-won seats this year will roughly equal the 23 House Republicans who ran in 2018 in seats that voted for Hillary Clinton two years earlier.
In 2018, Democrats beat 20 of those 23 Clinton-district Republicans. That precedent undergirds the Republican optimism about flipping more seats than usual. “In 2018, Democrats took back their own turf,” says Mike Marinella, press secretary for the NRCC. “Now, in 2026, it’s almost the exact same situation on the other side as Democrats are the ones renting districts in Trump country, and we’re going all in to bring Republican voters home in November.”
But Republicans face many hurdles trying to match the overpowering Democratic 2018 performance in split-ticket districts. The GOP is strongly favored this year in the six seats where the new lines are forcing Democrats to run in districts that gave Trump about 57% of the vote or more (though Democrats and some independent analysts don’t entirely rule out an upset from Democratic incumbents Shomari Figures in Alabama and Darren Soto in Florida, or in an open seat around Houston).
The remaining 16 Democrats running in seats Trump won with 55% of the vote or less, though, are proving more competitive than many analysts initially expected. In 2018, Democrats looking to oust Republicans in districts that voted for Clinton had a huge tailwind of dissatisfaction with Trump. Conversely, Republicans looking to oust Democrats in districts that voted for Trump now face the headwind of discontent with the president.
CJ Warnke, communications director for House Majority PAC, the principal Democratic super PAC investing in House races, says that in the group’s polling, Trump’s approval rating “is underwater across the board, to varying degrees, in every district across the battlefield.” And that means even in districts Trump carried in 2024, association with him may be more anchor than sail in 2026.
The three heavily Latino South Texas Congressional districts that Republicans redrew in their gerrymander captures the GOP’s challenge. State Republicans reconfigured the Rio Grande Valley seats held by Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez and another Democratic seat south of San Antonio so that all three became districts where Trump carried about 55% of the vote in 2024 amid his sweeping gains among Latino voters.
But Trump’s support has eroded across the region. Recent polling by Texas Southern University found that about 55% of voters now disapprove of his performance in both the Cuellar and Gonzalez districts. (The poll didn’t include the San Antonio-area district.)
“It’s pretty obvious to anybody that does a poll that… the president’s popularity in South Texas is surely not what it was two years ago,” says Republican consultant Wayne Hamilton, who runs Project Red TX, an organization dedicated to growing the party in South Texas.
While Trump’s moves to regain control of the southern border have widely received good marks across South Texas, his aggressive deportation drive has generated bitter backlash. Probably even more damaging has been the increase in fuel prices driven by the Iran war.
Johnny Garcia, a sheriff’s deputy in Bexar County who is the Democratic nominee for the San Antonio-area House seat, used Spanish slang for trucks when he noted in an interview that for many Latino men, a “fancy troquita, with their 30-inch jacked-up tires and their loud mufflers” is a source of great pride. “And now,” Garcia added, “we’re seeing, under this administration, that troquita is being parked in the driveway, and they’re being forced to drive their wives’ minivans, because they don’t have the money to afford to fill up that gas tank.”
Hamilton said that amid frustration over the economy and immigration enforcement the best asset for Republicans in these seats will be to remind voters why they rejected Democrats in 2024. “People do not want to go back to that,” Hamilton says. “Republicans have to work to… show (voters) your life is better because Republicans restored law and order on the border and promoted economic development.”
But orienting voters to what they didn’t like about Biden may be difficult when they are so frustrated with conditions under Trump.Mark Jones, a Rice University political scientist who helps manage the Texas Southern poll, says the gerrymander was built on the misguided assumption that Trump’s strong 2024 performance in South Texas represented a reliable new baseline for the GOP. Instead, Jones says, “what we are seeing now across Texas is a reversion to where Republicans normally are with Latino voters, which is winning about 40% of the vote.”
In that environment, most independent analysts consider Cuellar and Gonzalez favorites for reelection, with Garcia, while still an underdog, retaining a plausible chance at an upset.
Steve Schale, a Florida-based Democratic strategist, says a similar reversion is complicating the Republicans’ gerrymander there. While the GOP remains favored to beat Soto, and may hold a small edge in another open Democratic-held district redrawn to become redder, Democratic incumbents Kathy Castor and Jared Moskowitz are proving stubbornly competitive in districts where Trump won comfortably. “The Republicans made a bet… that the Florida of 2022 and 2024 is the Florida that exists in a permanent state,” Schale says.
If Republican support stays that high this year, he says, the GOP will pick up at least three and maybe four of the Democratic seats they have targeted. But, he added, “If you believe, and I do, that the reality is in the middle — in a normal condition, Florida is definitely a different state than it was in 2018 and 2020 but not as Republican as it was in 2024 — then a lot of these districts are really mushy.”
The same could be said about many other districts now held by Democrats where Trump won in 2024 by even smaller margins. Most of them might favor Republicans even in a neutral political environment. But with Trump’s approval rating tumbling toward its lowest point ever, 2026 looks anything but.
Republicans express confidence these districts retain a bedrock distrust of Democrats, especially on cultural issues, that will resurface by Election Day. “They’ve failed to offer voters a viable alternative,” says Marinella. But the GOP’s spending decisions suggest a more cautious view: Since August 1, Republican candidates and committees have spent nearly 10 times as much on advertising defending GOP-held seats ($485 million) as on ads targeting Democratic districts ($50 million), according to AdImpact data analyzed last week by Politico.
Since the 1980s, flipping Senate seats held by the other side has been even more difficult for the president’s party. In the midterms of 1990, 1994, 2006, 2010 and 2014, the president’s party did not capture any Senate seats held by the other side. In 1982, 1986, and 2022, the president’s party flipped just a single seat held by the other side.
Democrats did win three Republican-held Senate seats in 1998 under Clinton, while Republicans captured two Democratic seats under W. Bush in 2002. But both men at those points had an unusually elevated approval rating of about 65%.
The GOP’s 2018 experience offered a variation on that theme: Even while losing the House, Republicans ousted four Democratic senators that year. But all four of those GOP victories came in states Trump carried two years earlier — and where exit polls showed his approval rating remained above 50%, much better than his 45% among voters nationally.
Republicans began this year hoping to contest four Democratic-held Senate seats: Georgia and Michigan in states that Trump won in 2024, and Minnesota and New Hampshire in states he lost. With Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff opening a consistent lead over scandal-tossed Republican Mike Collins, Georgia has virtually fallen off the board for the GOP.
The remaining three GOP opportunities are open seats. In contrast to 2018, Trump’s approval has fallen well below 50% in Michigan and New Hampshire. (No recent public polling that meets CNN standards is available in Minnesota but strategists in both parties agree Trump’s standing is underwater there too.)
In different ways, Republicans are hoping to disconnect the Minnesota and New Hampshire races from the national environment and focus the debate on local concerns.
In Minnesota, the welfare fraud scandals engulfing outgoing Democratic Gov. Tim Walz have hurt Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, the party’s nominee for Senate against Republican Michele Tafoya, a former ESPN sportscaster. In New Hampshire, former Republican Senator John Sununu, who’s been out of elected office since losing a reelection bid in 2008, has kept his distance from Trump and tried to leverage the local popularity of the family name: Both his father and brother served as popular New Hampshire governors.
Dante Scala, a University of New Hampshire political scientist, says he believes “Sununu and his allies are playing their hand as well as they can right now.” But, he adds, with Trump now so unpopular in the state, “I do think in the end those fundamentals will outweigh the tactical maneuvering (from) Sununu.” Rep. Chris Pappas, the Democratic Senate nominee, may be more “sturdy” than scintillating, Scala says, but in such a blue-leaning state, “I think sturdy is more than enough this year.”
Michigan presents a different dynamic. There, Democrats nominated Abdul El-Sayed, an exciting but polarizing left-leaning candidate against former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, who nearly won a Senate seat in 2024. In polling, El-Sayed consistently has faced more resistance from voters than Jocelyn Benson, the centrist Democratic gubernatorial nominee.
But with Trump’s Michigan disapproval rating scraping 60% in most surveys, “I just think the hill is pretty tall for Rogers given the environment,” says Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “And the same thing is true with Minnesota and New Hampshire. Clearly those have been competitive races but (in this climate) I just don’t buy them as actual toss-ups.”
In any year defined by discontent with the president, it’s always been tough to convince voters to provide him more allies in Congress by ousting legislators from the other party. The gerrymanders have provided Republicans more pick up opportunities for the president’s party than usual — but not enough to fundamentally change that enduring equation.
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