2026-09-13T10:00:29.620Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/13/politics/democrats-republicans-midterms-2026
2026年中期选举的胜负，将取决于浪潮与高墙的碰撞之地。
越来越多迹象显示，今年民主党支持者组成的“蓝色浪潮”可能比2018年更为汹涌。当年美国民众对唐纳德·特朗普总统动荡的第一任期感到反弹，帮助民主党重新夺回众议院控制权。但共和党针对这股民主党浪潮构筑的防御高墙，看起来也比2018年更为坚固。
这股浪潮的高度，让民主党有充分理由期待，他们能够在原本坚定支持共和党的腹地赢得选举。而这道高墙的厚度，则让共和党有合理理由希望，能将己方的损失控制在温和范围内。
对民主党而言，这股浪潮主要由投票热情和特朗普本人推动：明确的迹象显示，今年民主党选民的投票积极性高于共和党选民，且如今选民对总统政绩的负面评价，不仅比2018年更严重，甚至超过了其他现代史上背离执政党立场的中期选举，比如2010年和2006年的选举。
对共和党来说，这道高墙的核心支柱是资金和选举版图：共和党凭借最高法院共和党任命多数派近期做出的关键裁决，放大了自身的资金优势；而选举战场几乎全部集中在特朗普2024年获胜的地区。
“这场选举是共和党的主场，他们必须加以利用，”曾担任全国共和党国会委员会主席的前共和党众议员汤姆·戴维斯说道，“但另一方面，这是一场对总统的全民公投，而他正遭遇一连串极为糟糕的事态叠加。”
多项综合指标显示，今年的选举环境对共和党而言，比2018年更为凶险——甚至比其他近期导致执政党损失惨重的中期选举形势更严峻。
这些预警信号首先体现在民众对经济的态度上。与2018年相比，如今的美国人对当前经济状况的负面评价更高，对未来也更为悲观。通胀已成为日常生活中无法逃避的压力：例如美国汽车协会（AAA）的数据显示，上周汽油价格达到每加仑4.28美元，而2018年选举日的价格为每加仑2.75美元（按通胀因素换算后相当于如今的3.65美元）。在今年夏天由两党民调团队开展的最新CNBC民调中，仅有27%的美国人认为经济“优秀”或“良好”，而73%的人认为经济“一般”或“糟糕”。而在2018年10月的CNBC民调中，58%的人对经济给出正面评价，仅有40%给出负面评价。
与民主党合作伙伴共同开展CNBC民调的共和党民调专家迈卡·罗伯茨表示，如今无论是民主党、无党派选民甚至共和党选民，对经济持负面看法的比例都远高于2018年。他还指出，尤为显著的是，不仅对当前经济状况不满，且对未来感到悲观的选民比例，是2018年的两倍。“这是一个截然不同的选举环境，”罗伯茨说道，“各地所有人都感受到了经济压力。”
如今民众对经济的悲观情绪，甚至比2010年中期选举前CNBC民调的结果更为沉重——那次选举中民主党遭遇了历史性损失；也比2006年共和党失去参众两院控制权时的出口民调结果更糟。
2006年民主党赢得众议院席位，背后也有民众对时任总统乔治·W·布什2003年发动的伊拉克战争普遍幻灭的因素。在2006年的出口民调中，59%的选民认为战争并未提升美国的安全水平——其中超过四分之三的怀疑者将票投给了民主党众议院候选人。如今，伊朗问题在多数民调中也面临着类似的公众反对声浪。
特朗普的其他一些举措更受欢迎，比如他为管控南部边境采取的行动，以及“一项宏大美好法案”中临时减免小费税和加班费税的条款。但与2018年选举前相比，特朗普如今推行的大量具体政策，遭到了绝大多数美国人的反对，其中包括他的关税政策以及该和解法案中的医保补助削减计划。
所有这些因素——尤其是经济和战争问题——不可避免地削弱了特朗普的支持率。对特朗普经济管理能力的负面看法“在2018年几乎不存在”，民主党民调专家尼克·古雷维奇说道，“2018年的情况是：‘他这个人不行，很疯狂，但经济表现不错。’如今则变成了：‘他这个人不行，很疯狂，而且经济表现糟糕。’”
CNN最新的综合民调显示，仅有35%的美国人认可特朗普的执政表现，63%的人表示不认可。如果今年11月的选民仍保持这一支持率，那将比2018年出口民调中特朗普的支持率差得多——当时45%的选民表示认可，54%的选民不认可。特朗普的支持率也远低于近期中期选举中其他遭遇选举失利的在任总统，包括2022年的乔·拜登、2010年的奥巴马、2006年的乔治·W·布什以及1994年的比尔·克林顿。
特朗普支持率的下滑对共和党构成了明确且现实的威胁：出口民调数据显示，在特朗普第一任期内，2018年反对特朗普的选民中，90%将票投给了民主党众议院候选人；2020年这一比例达到93%。同样，在这两次选举的参议院竞选中，除2020年缅因州共和党参议员苏珊·柯林斯的对手外，所有民主党现任议员或挑战者，都在反对特朗普的选民中获得了至少89%的支持率。
今年最令民主党担忧的迹象或许是，他们的许多候选人在反对特朗普的选民中尚未达到上述支持比例。但如今反对特朗普的选民数量如此之多——不仅在摇摆州，甚至在北卡罗来纳州、得克萨斯州、俄亥俄州和佐治亚州等倾向共和党的地区也是如此——以至于民主党即使只获得其中一部分人的支持，也能达到50%的支持率。
民主党民调专家安娜·格林伯格表示，在她的民调和焦点小组访谈中，红州选民往往是对特朗普回归最不满的群体。她说道，他们首要抱怨的是通胀、伊朗问题，以及特朗普专注于自身私事——从敛财到用自己的建筑项目美化首都。
“在红州……无党派选民、拉丁裔选民、部分没有大学学历的白人女性，真的对特朗普非常愤怒，”格林伯格说道，“并且会连带反感共和党。在焦点小组访谈中……他们感觉自己被背叛和欺骗了。”
资深共和党民调专家惠特·艾尔斯表示，特朗普在自称“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）运动支持者中的支持率依然未受影响。但他指出，约有一半的共和党选民并不认同MAGA。而在这些非MAGA共和党选民中——包括传统的乡村俱乐部共和党人，以及2024年特朗普吸引的大多年轻且非白人选民——“特朗普的支持率下滑了很多”，艾尔斯说道。
艾尔斯和其他战略家表示，这些2024年对特朗普感到失望的选民（尤其是少数族裔）可能会转而支持民主党。但随着美国政治日益极化，愿意跨越党派界限的选民越来越少。罗伯茨表示，在CNBC的民调中，表示今年仍会投票给共和党的非MAGA共和党选民比例，比认可特朗普执政表现的共和党选民比例高出约20个百分点。
“有很多人可能会想，‘我不喜欢特朗普，但……我不同意另一党的政策以及他们会带领我们走向的方向’，”罗伯茨说道。
多数分析师一致认为，在对特朗普感到失望的支持者中，共和党面临的最大风险是这些选民根本不会投票。“这是共和党候选人面临的主要挑战之一，”艾尔斯说道，“目前民主党选民的积极性远高于共和党选民。”
这一潜在的投票率差距，是民主党可能掀起的浪潮的另一大组成部分。民调不仅 consistently显示，称自己非常有动力投票的民主党选民多于共和党选民，而且自2024年以来，民主党选民的投票人数也更多。
政治数据分析师约翰·库维隆计算得出，截至上周新罕布什尔州的初选，今年全国范围内的初选中，56%的选票来自民主党初选。这一比例甚至高于2018年的54%。相比之下，库维隆发现，在2014年和2022年——当时共和党在中期选举中取得胜绩——共和党选民的初投票率至少达到53%。
同样，民主党在本次中期选举前的特别选举中的表现，也比2018年之前更好。政治网站“Downballot”统计显示，在2024年以来的110场州级和联邦级特别选举中，民主党候选人的平均得票率比卡玛拉·哈里斯在同一选区的得票率高出12.5个百分点；而在2017年和2018年，民主党候选人的平均得票率比希拉里·克林顿2016年的得票率高出10.6个百分点。
另外两个因素可能会扩大今年民主党在投票率上的潜在优势。根据人口统计学家威廉·弗雷分析的人口普查数据，其一，在几乎所有关键摇摆州，少数族裔和/或白人大学毕业生——这两个通常对民主党有利的群体——在合格选民中的比例自2018年以来有所上升，而没有四年制大学学历的白人——特朗普的核心选民群体——的比例有所下降。其二，虽然少数族裔在中期选举中的投票比例通常低于总统选举年，但大学毕业生的情况恰好相反。这些变化可能只会在边际层面产生影响，但足以决定一些势均力敌的选举结果。
在所有这些对共和党不利的因素中，共和党高墙的起点是今年的州和国会选区选举版图。
在2018年选举前，众议院共和党人持有23个在2016年总统选举中支持希拉里·克林顿的席位，最终输掉了其中20个。而这次，在重新划分选区的纷争之前，共和党人仅需要防守3个在2024年总统选举中支持哈里斯的席位。更广泛地看，根据弗吉尼亚大学政治中心的计算，今年共和党人必须防守30个在2024年总统选举中以微弱优势支持或反对特朗普的席位，而2018年这一数字为36个。同时，共和党通过重新划分选区的行动，让13名民主党众议院议员需要防守特朗普得票率比全国平均水平高出至少5个百分点的选区，而2018年这类选区仅有4个。此外，与2018年相比，整体上具有竞争力的众议院席位更少——这意味着尽管民主党仍被看好夺回众议院多数席位，但他们克服自身意外失误（如丑闻或弱势候选人）的空间也更小。
从理论上讲，参议院的选举版图对共和党更为有利。民主党正在全力争夺的共和党席位中，缅因州是唯一一个哈里斯获胜的州；北卡罗来纳州是参议院版图中唯一一个哈里斯险些获胜的州。民主党瞄准的其他所有州的参议院席位，特朗普都以两位数优势获胜——包括阿拉斯加、俄亥俄州、得克萨斯州、艾奥瓦州，更不用说堪萨斯州和内布拉斯加州——在这两个州，民主党正在支持一名独立候选人。
即使在这些州，特朗普的支持率也普遍跌至负面区间，这为民主党提供了突破口。但要在这片艰难的土地上获胜，民主党候选人必须克服多年来与全国民主党产生的疏离感。在这些红州，民主党“必须将自己塑造成一位真正独特的候选人，能够改变现状，”民主党民调专家塞琳达·莱克说道，“获胜的不会是政党本身，而是支持变革的投票。”
除了选举版图，资金是共和党高墙的另一大支柱。根据“公开机密”（OpenSecrets.org）的数据，2018年民主党众议院和参议院候选人的筹款额显著超过了共和党对手。尽管当年共和党全国委员会和独立支出团体的筹款额超过了民主党对手，但联邦选举规则限制了他们与竞选团队的直接协调，并允许广播机构向这些团体收取比候选人更高的广告费用，削弱了这一优势。
但今年共和党任命的最高法院多数派做出的两项裁决，彻底消除了这些限制，将允许共和党将其全国委员会和外部团体相对于民主党对手的巨大资金优势最大化。
对共和党有利的另一个因素是民主党自身形象的下滑。皮尤研究中心的民调显示，过去三年来，民主党全国委员会的支持率一直在30%以上徘徊，比2018年有所下降。但共和党形象也并未更好——而且从历史上看，在任总统的支持率对中期选举结果的影响，远大于外界对政党的看法。
特朗普试图让选举规则向共和党倾斜，是共和党高墙的最后一部分——城垛上的尖刺。这一行动始于他成功施压多个红州重新划分国会选区。目前仍悬而未决的是，他试图限制邮寄投票，以及可能在民主党地区的投票站部署联邦执法人员。
所有这些都可能限制民主党 gains。但两党的战略家都一致认为，对在任总统的态度，已成为影响中期选举结果的最强大因素。没有任何一道高墙能够完全阻挡住因特朗普动荡的第二任期而涌起的公众不满浪潮。
A wave is building for Democrats. Republicans are building a wall to stop it
2026-09-13T10:00:29.620Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/13/politics/democrats-republicans-midterms-2026
The 2026 election will be decided where the wave meets the wall.
Signs are accumulating that the blue wave of Democratic support this year may be even higher than in the 2018 election, when a backlash against President Donald Trump’s tumultuous first term carried the party back into control of the House of Representatives. But the defensive wall that Republicans are constructing against that Democratic tide also looks bigger than in 2018.
The height of the wave gives Democrats legitimate reasons to expect they can win races deep into previously reliably Republican territory. The depth of the wall gives Republicans plausible reasons to hope they can contain their losses to a modest level.
For Democrats, the wave is being powered primarily by turnout and Trump: clear signs that their partisans are more energized than Republicans about voting this year and that voters are now more negative on the president’s performance than not only in 2018, but also in other modern midterms that broke sharply against the party holding the White House, such as 2010 and 2006.
For Republicans, the central bricks in the wall are money and the map: a financial advantage magnified by crucial recent decisions from the Republican-appointed majority on the Supreme Court, and an electoral battlefield that is playing out almost entirely in places Trump carried in 2024.
“This election is home field advantage for Republicans, and they’ve got to exploit that,” says former Republican Rep. Tom Davis, who chaired the National Republican Congressional Committee. “On the other hand, this is a referendum on the president, and he’s had a confluence of very bad things coming together.”
A wide assortment of measures suggests the electoral environment this year is more perilous for Republicans than it was in 2018 — and during other recent midterms that produced significant losses for the party holding the White House.
Those warning lights begin with attitudes about the economy. Compared with 2018, Americans today are much more negative about current economic conditions and much more pessimistic about the future. Inflation has become an inescapable strain on daily life: AAA, for instance, reported that gas prices last week reached $4.28 per gallon, compared with $2.75 on Election Day in 2018 (that’s $3.65 in today’s dollars, factoring for inflation). In the latest CNBC poll this summer conducted by a bipartisan Democratic-Republican pollster team, just 27% of Americans described the economy as excellent or good, compared with 73% who viewed as fair or poor. In CNBC’s October 2018 poll, 58% described the economy in positive terms and only 40% in negative ones.
Micah Roberts, a Republican pollster who conducts the CNBC survey with a Democratic partner, says far more Democrats, independents and even Republicans are negative on the economy than in 2018. Just as striking, he says, the share who are not only down on today’s conditions but pessimistic about tomorrow’s is twice as large now as then. “That’s a radically different environment,” Roberts says. “Everybody everywhere is feeling an economic pinch.”
Today’s economic assessment is also gloomier than the results measured in CNBC polls before the midterm election that produced historic losses for Democrats in 2010, and in the exit polls when Republicans lost control of both chambers in 2006.
The Democrats’ 2006 gains were fueled as well by widespread disillusionment over the Iraq War that then President George W. Bush launched in 2003. In the 2006 exit poll, 59% of voters said the war had not improved American security — and over three-fourths of those skeptics supported Democrats for the House. Today, the Iran War is facing comparable public opposition in most polls.
Some of Trump’s other initiatives have been more popular, such as his efforts to regain control of the Southern border and the provisions in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” temporarily reducing taxes on tips and overtime. But to a much greater extent than before the 2018 election, Trump has pursued a wide range of other specific policy choices that have provoked opposition from a significant majority of Americans, including his tariffs and the Medicaid cuts in that reconciliation bill.
All of this — especially the economy and the war — has predictably eroded Trump’s support. The negative views of Trump’s economic management “didn’t really exist in 2018,” said Democratic pollster Nick Gourevitch. “2018 was like: ‘He’s a bad guy, crazy guy, but the economy is good.’ Now it’s: ‘He’s a bad guy, crazy guy, and the economy is bad.’”
The latest CNN poll of polls found just 35% of Americans approve of Trump’s performance, with 63% disapproving. If those levels hold among this November’s electorate, they’ll be much worse than Trump’s standing in the 2018 exit poll, when 45% of voters approved and 54% disapproved. Trump’s approval rating is also much weaker than that of other presidents in recent midterms when their party suffered losses, including Joe Biden in 2022, Obama in 2010, George W. Bush in 2006 and Bill Clinton in 1994.
Trump’s decline poses a clear and present danger for Republicans: During his first term, Democratic House candidates won 90% of voters who disapproved of him in 2018, and 93% in 2020, per the exit polls. Likewise, in Senate races over those elections, every Democratic incumbent or challenger except Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins’ opponent in 2020 won at least 89% of voters who disapproved of Trump.
Probably the most worrisome sign for Democrats this year is that many of their candidates are not yet matching those benchmarks among Trump disapprovers. But so many voters now disapprove of Trump — not only in swing states but even such red-leaning places as North Carolina, Texas, Ohio and Georgia — that Democrats can reach 50% even with support from fewer of them.
Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg says that in her surveys and focus groups, red-state voters are often the most disenchanted with Trump’s return. They point above all, she says, to inflation, the Iran war and Trump’s focus on his own preoccupations — from making money to gilding the capital with his construction projects.
“In the red states… it feels like independent voters, Hispanic voters, White non-college women to some degree, are really, really angry at Trump,” Greenberg says. “And, in guilt by association, with Republicans. When you do focus groups … they feel betrayed and lied to.”
Whit Ayres, a veteran Republican pollster, says that Trump’s hold remains undiminished on voters who identify as part of his Make America Great Again movement. But he notes, about half of Republican voters don’t identify with MAGA. And among those non-MAGA Republican voters — a group that includes both traditional country-club Republicans and the new, mostly younger and nonwhite, voters Trump attracted in 2024 — Trump “has slipped a lot,” Ayres says.
Some of those disillusioned 2024 Trump voters (especially people of color) may cross over to vote for Democrats, Ayres and other strategists say. But as American politics have grown more polarized, fewer voters are willing to cross that line. Roberts says that in the CNBC polling, the share of non-MAGA Republicans who say they are still voting for Republicans this fall is about 20 points higher than the portion who approve of Trump’s performance.
“There are a lot of people who may think, ‘I don’t like Trump but … I don’t agree with the policies of the other party and where they would take us,’” Roberts says.
Most analysts agree the biggest risk for the GOP among disillusioned Trump supporters is that they will not vote at all. “That’s one of the major challenges for Republican candidates,” Ayres says. “Democratic enthusiasm is substantially higher than Republican enthusiasm at the moment.”
That potential turnout gap represents the other major component of the possible Democratic wave. Not only do polls consistently show that more Democrats say they are very motivated to vote than Republicans, but more Democrats are voting since 2024.
Political data analyst John Couvillon has calculated that through last week’s New Hampshire contest, 56% of all the votes in primaries nationwide this year have been cast in Democratic contests. That’s an even bigger share than their 54% in 2018. By contrast, Couvillon found that in 2014 and 2022 — when Republicans made midterm gains — they cast at least 53% of primary votes nationwide.
Similarly, Democrats are performing even better in special elections leading into this midterm than they did before 2018. The Downballot, a political website, calculates that in 110 state and federal special elections since 2024, Democratic candidates on average have run 12.5 points better than Kamala Harris did in the same jurisdiction; in 2017 and 2018, Democratic candidates ran 10.6 points better than Hillary Clinton did in 2016.
Two other factors could widen this year’s potential Democratic turnout advantage. One is that across almost all the key battleground states, racial minorities and/or White college graduates, two generally good groups for Democrats, have increased their share of eligible voters since 2018, while Whites without a four-year college degree, the core Trump constituency, have diminished, according to census figures analyzed by demographer William Frey. And while people of color usually make up a smaller share of the vote in midterms than presidential years, the opposite is true for college graduates. These shifts will likely matter only at the margin, but that could be enough to tip some very close races.
Amid all these forces churning against them, the Republican wall begins with the map of states and districts at play this year.
Heading into the 2018 election, House Republicans held 23 seats that voted for Clinton two years before and ultimately lost 20 of them. This time, before the redistricting wars, Republicans were defending just three seats that voted for Harris. Looking more broadly, Republicans this year must defend 30 seats that narrowly voted either for or against Trump in 2024, compared with 36 in 2018, according to calculations by the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. And the GOP’s redistricting drive has left 13 House Democrats defending districts where Trump ran at least 5 points better than his share of the national vote, compared to just four in such districts in 2018. Moreover, fewer House seats overall than in 2018 remain competitive — which leaves Democrats, while still strongly favored to capture the majority, with less room to overcome idiosyncratic stumbles (such as scandals or otherwise vulnerable nominees).
On paper, the Senate map is even more forbidding. Of the Republican-held seats Democrats are most seriously contesting, Maine is the only one in a state that supported Harris; North Carolina is the sole other state on the Senate map where Harris even came close. Trump prevailed by double digits in every other state whose Senate seat Democrats are targeting — Alaska, Ohio, Texas, Iowa, much less Kansas and Nebraska (where Democrats are supporting an independent candidate.)
Even in these states, Trump’s approval has generally fallen into negative territory, which provides Democrats their opening. But to win on this stony soil, Democratic candidates must overcome years of alienation from their national party. In these red states, Democrats “have to establish yourself as a really unique candidate who is going to change the way things are,” says Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. “It isn’t going to be the party that wins; it is going to be a vote for change that wins.”
After the map, money is the next major component of the GOP wall. In 2018, Democratic House and Senate candidates significantly outraised their Republican opponents, according to OpenSecrets.org. And while Republican party committees and independent expenditure groups raised more than their Democratic counterparts that year, that advantage was dulled by federal election rules which limited their direct coordination with campaigns and allowed broadcasters to charge those groups more for ads than they charged candidates.
But two rulings by the Republican-appointed Supreme Court majority this year have swept away those constraints, which will allow Republicans to maximize the big financial advantage their party committees and outside groups have established over their Democratic rivals.
Also working for Republicans is the decline in the Democrats’ own image.In Pew Research polling, favorability ratings for the Democratic Party have hovered in the high 30s for the past three years, a downtick from 2018. But the GOP image is no better-and historically attitudes toward the president in the White House have shaped midterm results much more than views of the party outside it.
Trump’s efforts to tilt electoral rules toward the GOP represent the final section of the GOP wall — the spikes on the battlements. That effort began with his successful pressure on multiple red states to gerrymander their House districts. Still looming are his attempts to restrict mail voting and possible deployments of federal law enforcement at polling places in Democratic areas.
All of this could limit Democratic gains. But strategists in both parties agree that attitudes toward the incumbent president have become the most powerful force influencing midterm outcomes. No wall may be high enough to fully contain the wave of public disenchantment cresting through Trump’s storm-tossed second term.