2026-04-28T04:00:50.927Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
斯蒂芬·科林森 分析
发布于 2026年4月28日，美国东部时间00:00
2026年4月17日，弗吉尼亚州伯克县某投票站，选民在提前投票时填写选票。
亚历克斯·王/盖蒂图片社
无论民主党在11月的选举中获胜，还是共和党借助特朗普式的又一次不可思议的卷土重来获益，2026年选举都将因缩小了美国民主的一个关键维度而被载入史册。
唐纳德·特朗普总统挑起中期选举前的重划选区之争，试图规避总统任期中期选举的“诅咒”，这让民主党面临一个选择：是坚守最纯粹的政治原则，还是以其人之道还治其人之身。
他们选择了后者，这为一个可能最终主导2028年总统竞选以及任何新一届民主党政府执政初期的问题给出了初步答案：民主党应该在多大程度上利用新的先例、对总统权力的扩大解释，以及特朗普在动荡的第二任期内开创的强硬手段？
重划选区的背后，是许多民主党人终于想要约束咄咄逼人的共和党总统的迫切心情。这背后也有像加利福尼亚州州长加文·纽瑟姆这类有着全国政治抱负的领导人的推动。因此，民主党各州针对特朗普要求在得克萨斯州、佛罗里达州等地进行新的选区划分的举动，推出有利于本党的国会选区地图，在“金州”加利福尼亚和弗吉尼亚等票仓州做出这样的回应也就不足为奇了。
2025年8月21日，加利福尼亚州州长加文·纽瑟姆在萨克拉门托出席与重新划分该州国会选区相关的法案签署仪式。
贾斯汀·沙利文/盖蒂图片社
民主党高层为这一举措辩解称，这是在前总统巴拉克·奥巴马所说的“临时性”措施，目的是扭转选举场上的不平等局面。对于自特朗普重新入主白宫以来一直苦于无所作为、令其最坚定支持者感到沮丧的政党而言，这在政治上是理所当然的。在当前局势下，展开斗争本身就是当务之急。
但以硬碰硬往往会引发更大的冲突。尽管一些民主党人设想未来设立独立委员会，以公平方式划分国会选区，但很难预见有毒的政治环境会有所缓和。
周一，重划选区的交锋在多个层面升级。
佛罗里达州州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯加入了这场博弈，掌控该州议会的共和党人通过了他提出的新选区地图，这可能让共和党在目前由民主党掌控的4个国会席位上占据优势。
相关报道 德桑蒂斯与佛罗里达共和党人推动翻转4个国会席位，民主党称之为“愚蠢的选区划分” 阅读时长5分钟
与此同时，弗吉尼亚州最高法院周一就一份新的国会选区划分方案听取了质疑。该方案经选民投票通过，但共和党人希望推翻它，称其违反了程序规则。
围绕选举地图的拉锯战可能对2026年和2028年的选举至关重要，尤其是在选举结果接近、参众两院多数席位取决于寥寥数个席位的情况下。特朗普的行动凸显了这些问题对他第二任期命运的重要性——眼下他正面临着未来两年将面临 relentless 国会调查的可能性。
但双方都在付出代价。
为党派利益重新绘制选区地图的各州，加剧了长期困扰美国政治的一种破坏性模式，而在2019年最高法院一项关键裁决后，这种模式进一步恶化：政治领导人选择自己的选民，而非相反，这颠覆了民主原则。
特朗普总有离任的一天，但他的手段不会被遗忘。
任何未来的民主党总统都可能面临来自本党进步派基础的压力，要求采取激进举措摧毁特朗普的政治遗产，推行自身的议程。这可能与现任总统在第二任期头100天内利用广泛甚至有时存疑的行政权力推动国家转型的做法如出一辙。
在某些情况下，法院只有在特朗普采取不可逆转的行动后才会出手质疑或暂缓其权力操作——比如他解散美国国际开发署的举动。
民主党立场的强硬已经显现。
众议院少数党领袖哈基姆·杰弗里斯在中期选举前采取了强硬态度。周一，这位纽约州民主党人拒绝收回他关于“全面战争时代”的言论，该言论 specifically 针对上周弗吉尼亚州选民批准新选区地图的举动，该地图可能让民主党在该州国会代表团中获得10比1的优势。
2026年4月26日，密歇根州底特律，众议院少数党领袖哈基姆·杰弗里斯在底特律全国有色人种协进会“为自由而战”筹款晚宴上发表讲话。
安德鲁·罗斯/SIPAPRE/Sipa/美联社
在一场据称针对特朗普的暗杀未遂事件发生两天后，白宫新闻秘书卡罗琳·利夫特和其他几位共和党人将杰弗里斯的言论与其他民主党言论一同列为可能煽动暴力的言论。杰弗里斯辩称，白宫从未谴责过右翼的言论，并补充道：“一边去吧。先管好你们自己的事，再来对我们指手画脚。”
重划选区的破坏性弊端
从理论上讲，为党派利益重新绘制国会选区地图会对民主造成破坏性影响。看似由政党预先决定的选举会加剧选民的愤世嫉俗情绪，削弱民主自治政治体系正常运转所需的民众认同。被操纵的选区往往会加剧对少数族裔选民的歧视。而切断合法的政治变革途径，可能会增加反民主行为甚至政治暴力的风险。
更多安全的党派选区的出现，也意味着党内初选对现任议员构成的威胁最大。候选人往往会被活动人士推向意识形态极端，这让妥协——共和体制必不可少的黏合剂——在华盛顿变得更加困难。
不过，试图倾斜州国会选区的做法并不总能奏效。今年，特朗普在得克萨斯州启动的选区重划计划可能会适得其反，因为这引发了民主党的反击。如果他不断下滑的支持率预示着11月将出现蓝色浪潮，那么佛罗里达州和得克萨斯州的选区地图调整可能反而会让一些稳固的共和党席位变得更容易被攻破。
并非所有共和党人都愿意配合特朗普对华盛顿的要求，这些要求侵犯了各州管理选举的宪法职权。例如，在印第安纳州，共和党州议员顶住了联邦层面要求修改选区地图的压力。美国有线电视新闻网的埃里克·布拉德纳本周报道称，印第安纳州支持特朗普的选民现在可能会在州初选中抵制总统惩罚这些议员的企图。
民主党人辩称，他们的一些反击举措——比如在弗吉尼亚州和加利福尼亚州——得到了投票倡议的支持，而非仅仅由本身就存在选区操纵问题的州议会决定。共和党人则反驳称，民主党长期以来一直在马里兰州等州不公平地操纵选区划分。
心怀更高抱负的政客面临重大抉择
特朗普的重划选区突击行动，将冉冉升起的政治人物推到了聚光灯下。
在弗吉尼亚州，新任州长阿比盖尔·斯潘伯格以温和派形象参选，打消了人们对全国民主党人对这个偏向紫色的州过于激进的担忧，随后以压倒性优势获胜。但她上任后的首批重大举措之一，就是应最高层党内领导人的要求，支持就重划选区进行全州范围的投票，而该投票仅以微弱优势通过。
斯潘伯格曾表示，此举是对特朗普的临时性回应，该州两党联合的重划选区委员会将恢复运作。但本月《华盛顿邮报》-沙尔学校的一项民调显示，上任仅两个月，她的支持率就下滑至47%。不过，弗吉尼亚州州长不得连任，如果斯潘伯格未来怀有更高的政治抱负，她的个人政治前途取决于与全国政党保持一致。
在加利福尼亚州，纽瑟姆为民主党在11月赢得众议院多数席位打造了强有力的动员口号。他迅速采取行动，对抗特朗普的得克萨斯州重划选区策略，而去年选民批准了新的选区地图，这可能为民主党赢得数个新席位。如果11月全国政党的选举表现良好，作为潜在2028年总统初选候选人的纽瑟姆，可能会因展现出许多民主党人期望的特朗普式强硬作风而功不可没。
2026年4月7日，佛罗里达州州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯在迈阿密出席一场会议。
乔·劳德尔/盖蒂图片社
德桑蒂斯长期以来一直是一名强硬的意识形态斗士，他推行民粹主义和保守主义政策，作为其个人政治规划的一部分。但如果他希望修复自己作为“让美国再次伟大”运动潜在继承人的地位——这一地位在2024年共和党总统初选中因表现不佳受损——他别无选择，只能顺从。
但他的决定，与一些民主党同行的决定一样，仍有可能加剧公众对政治体系失灵的广泛不满。这也确保了特朗普的两届总统任期将永远改变美国政治。
One critical question the 2026 election has already answered
2026-04-28T04:00:50.927Z / CNN
Analysis by Stephen Collinson
PUBLISHED Apr 28, 2026, 12:00 AM ET
A voter casts a ballot during early voting at a polling place on April 17, 2026 in Burke, Virginia.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Whether Democrats triumph in November or Republicans benefit from another improbable Trumpian comeback, the 2026 elections will be remembered for narrowing a critical aspect of American democracy.
President Donald Trump’s triggering of a mid-decade redistricting battle in an effort to stave off the presidential midterm election curse left Democrats with a choice: to cling to the purest political motives, or to fight back in kind.
Their decision to take the latter course has offered an early answer to a question that may eventually dominate the 2028 presidential campaign and the early days of any new Democratic presidency: To what extent should Democrats exploit new precedents, expanded interpretations of presidential power and the brass knuckle-methods pioneered by Trump in his turbulent second term?
Redistricting is being fueled by the urgency many Democrats feel in finally constraining an aggressive Republican president. It’s also being driven by leaders with potential national futures like California Gov. Gavin Newsom. So it’s not surprising state Democrats responded to Trump’s demands for new gerrymandering in Texas, Florida and elsewhere with congressional maps that favor them in strongholds like the Golden State and Virginia.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom during a bill-signing event related to redrawing the state’s congressional maps on August 21, 2025, in Sacramento.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Top Democrats rationalized the move to adopt what former President Barack Obama called “temporary” steps to level the electoral playing field. Politically this is a no-brainer for a party whose impotence has frustrated its own most committed backers since Trump won back the White House. At this point, fighting is an imperative in itself.
But fighting with fire often creates a bigger blaze. And while some Democrats envision future independent commissions to fairly draw congressional districts, it’s hard to foresee a time when toxic political conditions will abate.
The showdown over redistricting deepened on several fronts Monday.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis joined the party after Republicans who control the state legislature took up his new map, which could give their party an edge in four seats currently held by Democrats.
Related article DeSantis and Florida Republicans push to flip four US House seats in what Democrats call a ‘dummymander’ 5 min read
Meanwhile, the Virginia Supreme Court on Monday heard a challenge to a new congressional redistricting plan approved by voters that Republicans want thrown out, claiming procedural rule breaches.
Skirmishes over electoral maps could be crucial for the 2026 and 2028 elections, especially if results are close and House and Senate majorities rest on a few seats. Trump’s actions highlight their importance for the fate of his second term as he stares at the possibility of two years of relentless congressional scrutiny.
But both sides are exacting a cost.
States that drew up new maps for partisan advantage intensified a damaging pattern that has long dogged US politics but has worsened after a pivotal 2019 Supreme Court decision: that of political leaders choosing their voters, rather than the reverse, in an upending of democratic principles.
Trump will one day leave office. But his methodology won’t be forgotten.
Any future Democratic president is likely to face pressure from the party’s progressive base to take aggressive steps to destroy Trump’s legacy and to implement its own agenda. This might parallel the current president’s race to transform the nation in the first 100 days of his second term with sweeping and sometimes questionable executive authority.
In some cases, courts only caught up and challenged or delayed Trump’s power plays when he’d take irreversible steps — for instance with his dismantling of the US Agency for International Development.
The toughening of the Democratic line is already starting.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is taking an aggressive approach heading into the midterms. On Monday, the New York Democrat refused to repudiate his depiction of “an era of maximum warfare” that referred specifically to Virginia voters last week approving the new map that could give the party a 10-1 edge in the state’s congressional delegation.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries speaks at the Detroit NAACP Fight For Freedom Fund Dinner in Detroit, Michigan, on April 26, 2026.
Andrew Roth/SIPAPRE/Sipa/AP
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and several other Republicans had listed the comment among others by Democrats as having the potential to incite violence, two days after an alleged assassination attempt against Trump at a press gala. Jeffries argued the White House had done nothing to call out rhetoric from the right, adding, “Get lost. Clean up your own house before you have anything to say to us.”
The corrosive downside to redistricting
In the abstract, redrawing congressional maps for partisan ends can have a damaging impact on democracy. Elections that seem predetermined by parties contribute to voter cynicism and risk eroding the consent needed for a functioning political system of democratic self-government. Gerrymandered districts often heighten discrimination against voters of color. And cutting off legitimate routes for political change may increase the potential for anti-democratic activity and even political violence.
The creation of more safe partisan districts also means that party primaries end up posing the greatest threat to a sitting lawmaker. Candidates often find themselves pushed toward ideological extremes by activists. This makes compromise, the essential glue of the republican system, harder in Washington.
Still, attempts to tilt state congressional districts don’t always work. This year, Trump’s efforts that began in Texas could backfire because they encouraged a Democratic response. If his ebbing approval ratings augur a blue-wave election in November, changes to maps in Florida and Texas might paradoxically have made some solid GOP seats more vulnerable.
And not every Republican has been willing to play along with Trump’s demands for Washington which impinge on the constitutional role of states in running elections. In Indiana, for example, GOP state legislators withstood federal pressure to change the map. CNN’s Eric Bradner reported this week that Hoosier Trump voters might now defy the president’s effort to punish those lawmakers in state primaries.
Democrats argue that some of their efforts to fight back — for example in Virginia and California — were endorsed in ballot initiatives rather than simply decided by state legislatures that are themselves gerrymandered. Republicans counter that Democrats have long unfairly shaped districts in states like Maryland.
Big decisions for leaders eyeing bigger things
Trump’s redistricting blitz has thrust rising political personalities into the spotlight.
In Virginia, new Gov. Abigail Spanberger won in a landslide after campaigning as a moderate to defuse perceptions that national Democrats are too radical for the purplish state. But one of her first major actions was to back a statewide vote on redistricting at the behest of top party leaders that only passed by a narrow margin.
Spanberger has said the move was a temporary reaction to Trump and that the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission will return. But a Washington Post-Schar School poll this month showed her approval rating had slipped to 47% after just two months in office. Still, Virginia governors are barred from serving consecutive terms, and if Spanberger harbors higher ambitions in the future, her personal viability depended on lining up with the national party.
In California, Newsom built himself a powerful rallying call should his party win the House in November. He leaped into action to counter Trump’s Texas redistricting strategy, and voters last year approved new districts that could hand Democrats a handful of new seats. If November goes well for the national party, Newsom, a potential 2028 presidential primary candidate, could claim credit after showing the Trump-style toughness many Democrats want.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis attends a conference in Miami on April 7, 2026.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
DeSantis has long been a gritty ideological fighter who pursued populist and conservative policies as part of his own personal political project. But if he hopes to repair his status as a possible MAGA heir — which was punctured by a disappointing 2024 GOP presidential primary campaign — he had no choice but to fall into line.
But his decision, like those of some Democratic counterparts, still threatens to fuel the public’s wider sense that the political system is broken. And it helps ensure that politics will be forever altered by Trump’s twin presidencies.