2026-10-07T04:00:44.728Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/07/politics/trump-rallies-2026-election-republicans
那支定义了2024年大选的广告曾宣称“卡玛拉站在跨性别群体一边。特朗普总统站在你这边。”
两年过去，大选主题几乎只剩下他本人。
这对民主党候选人的尖锐抨击不仅攻击了她在跨性别议题上的立场，更将其对手塑造成唯一一个倾听美国民众应对高食品和住房成本呼声的人。
但重返挂满金色帷幔的椭圆形办公室，以及一场旨在永垂不朽的个人化基建热潮，似乎让唐纳德·特朗普总统偏离了这类民生关切——而在某些方面，他的政策甚至让这些问题进一步恶化。
特朗普的竞选行程节奏加快，目前已到访得克萨斯州、俄亥俄州、阿拉巴马州和内布拉斯加州，表面上是为了帮助共和党中期选举候选人，但他在活动中言辞散漫、处处以自我为中心，虽引发政治风暴，却几乎未能回应此次选举的核心议题。
近日，特朗普因暗示伊朗可能“袭击”圣迭戈或洛杉矶而引发众怒，打乱了共和党竞选宣传节奏。民主党的回应并未准确还原事件背景，但他的失言给了对方机会，在大选前本已式微的舆论战场上主导了话题。
特朗普还在激烈抱怨福克斯新闻不够公平。他又引发新争议：动用纳税人资金投放竞选风格广告；在南卡罗来纳州使用反跨性别 slur 攻击一名民主党候选人；在俄亥俄州的周末集会上宣称共和党会将选举胜利“塞到”对手“屁股里”。
周二在马里兰州宣传一项造船项目时，他语出惊人地即兴提议将“假新闻”重新定义为“人工”媒体，理由是他先将人工智能改称为“超级智能”，腾出了这个词。
特朗普从未遵循既定发言稿。事实上，他的口头即兴发挥曾是其政治优势。然而，那些曾将他打造成颠覆政治体系的局外人的即兴吐槽和嘲讽，如今却可能成为负担——选民正将高物价、中东泥潭以及落空的希望归咎于他。
在这场以特朗普政府不得人心、以及民众对贫富分化经济的明显不满为核心的中期选举中，他目前主要在红州展开的密集竞选攻势似乎缺乏策略。目前也没有证据表明这达到了预期效果，尽管他周二在Truth Social上声称自己正在“各地翻转选情”。
距离选举还有四周，民主党仅需拿下数个席位就能夺回众议院多数，而参议院的激烈选战也已进入白热化阶段，特朗普确实说到做到，让竞选完全围绕他自己展开。而民调显示，选民仍不信任民主党，他的做法可能反而让民主党得以脱身。
他站在科技亿万富翁一边，告诉美国人必须接受AI数据中心，但许多选民反感这些设施占用大片土地、消耗大量水电。周一在内布拉斯加州为共和党候选人助选时，他似乎对牧场主的不满无动于衷——这些牧场主愤怒于他暂停对数万吨外国牛肉征收关税以降低国内价格的举措，特朗普则称“如果民主党获胜，他们将陷入大麻烦”。周二在巴尔的摩，他吹嘘股市持续创下历史新高，这对最富有的美国人最为有利。他还对每次加油都感到头疼的家庭表示，阻止伊朗获得核武器只是“付出小代价”——尽管他此前曾宣称已摧毁德黑兰的核能力，随后却发动了战争。
即便总统有好消息可以宣传，比如韩国韩华集团在费城投资50亿美元的基础设施项目，他也将其包装为个人胜利，而非打造“此类成功能够打造惠及工薪阶层的经济”的叙事。他零散的宣传方式很少能像宣传更高的退税预期、降低药品和住房成本的举措那样，将政绩展现得淋漓尽致。
现任总统在中期选举中始终面临平衡难题，尤其是在选民将经济状况归咎于其政府之时。但特朗普往往不去解释现实并提出改善方案，反而凭空捏造新的说法。
“这是美国的黄金时代，”他周二说道，“我们取得了任何人都未曾想过的成绩。”这不仅无视了周日哥伦比亚广播公司/舆观民调的结果——该民调发现70%的选民认为他的政策推高了食品杂货价格，在汽油均价4.36美元一加仑、柴油约6.30美元一加仑、抵押贷款利率刚突破7%之际，这番言论更是送给民主党的一份大礼。
“总统活在自己的 bubble 里，这并不罕见，”密歇根州民主党众议员黛比·丁格尔周一告诉CNN的奥迪·科尼什，这番话具体针对AI数据中心，但也例证了特朗普的整体问题。
无论是在得克萨斯州和佐治亚州等州为共和党推出弱势候选人，还是坚持让自己所在政党推举一位支持率仅30%多的总统候选人，特朗普处理中期选举的整体策略似乎都不明智。
“我请求你们假装我在选票上，”上周在阿拉巴马州的集会上，总统向选民恳求道，这让民主党战略家们欣喜不已。
但他的混乱举动背后是否另有深意？
民调显示温和派和独立选民正在背离特朗普，此时争取他们无异于浪费时间。在缅因州、密歇根州和佐治亚州等摇摆州的参议院竞选中，他可能对共和党弊大于利。
如果民调可信，俄亥俄州和艾奥瓦州等特朗普两年前以两位数优势获胜的州目前选情胶着，那么重新唤起与基础选民之间那种近乎神秘的联系，或许能为共和党提供唯一可行的应对策略。
“民主党已经将特朗普总统放上了选票，”宾夕法尼亚州众议员瑞安·麦肯齐周二告诉CNN的马努·拉朱，“我们需要的，而且我认为总统也在传达这个信息……是让共和党人明白，从他的政策和议程将被纳入选票的意义上来说，他已经在选票上了。”
2016年竞选期间，混乱并非劣势反而是优势。特朗普不受拘束的行事风格、人身攻击和荒诞离题的言论，颠覆了其支持者厌恶的政治常态。政界所有人都认为，他诋毁越战英雄约翰·麦凯恩参议员的英勇行为会毁了自己的竞选，但这一事件反而证明特朗普领先一步，政治和媒体精英并未意识到他已经改变了游戏规则。
那时，特朗普会在集会上观察观众反应，测试其最出格言论的效果。竞选集会往往像一场派对，有人说出了许多人认同却不敢直言的话。如今特朗普发表长篇大论时，或许正试图重现当时的魔力。
但十年过去，时过境迁。特朗普如今已不再是局外人；他已是政坛既得利益者，尽管试图展现自己并未放弃反叛精神，却仍在发动一场解释不清的战争、推高物价。
他的政治 longevity 非同寻常。但特朗普口中的“黄金时代”与许多支持者的现实生活之间的鸿沟，正被高房价和食品杂货价格凸显出来。正如CNN的亚伦·布雷克周二指出的，他的基本盘似乎也在缩小。他援引《纽约时报》/锡耶纳学院的民调称，在阿拉斯加州、艾奥瓦州、堪萨斯州、俄亥俄州和德克萨斯州等关键州，有9%至16%的共和党选民表示支持民主党候选人。
大选最后几天民调可能出现变化，11月3日当天，民调结果将不再重要。届时选民将回答定义特朗普2026年竞选的核心问题：
这场竞选是为了他们？
还是为了他？
Trump’s ‘for you’ presidency became all about himself. It’s hurting the GOP
2026-10-07T04:00:44.728Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/07/politics/trump-rallies-2026-election-republicans
The ad that defined the 2024 election said “Kamala is for they/them. President Trump is for you.”
Two years on, it’s mostly about him.
The scathing jab at the Democratic nominee did not just attack her positions on transgender issues. It positioned her opponent as the only one listening to Americans’ pleas for help with high food and housing prices.
But a return to the gold-draped Oval Office and a personal construction spree immortalizing his legacy seem to have distracted President Donald Trump from such concerns — which in some ways have gotten worse as a result of his policies.
And Trump’s accelerated campaign swing, so far stopping in Texas, Ohio, Alabama and Nebraska — ostensibly meant to help GOP midterm election candidates — is featuring undisciplined and self-referential appearances that trigger political firestorms but produce few answers to the critical question of the election.
In recent days, Trump trampled his party’s campaign message by igniting a furor over whether he’d suggested Iran could “take out” San Diego or Los Angeles. Democrats’ responses did not accurately reflect the context. But his intemperance gave them a chance to dominate the narrative on one of the declining days before the election.
Trump is also bitterly complaining that Fox News isn’t being fair. He launched another controversy by using taxpayer cash for campaign-style ads; used an anti-transgender slur against a Democratic candidate in South Carolina; and told a weekend crowd in Ohio the GOP would shove an election win up the rival party’s “ass.”
Touting a shipbuilding project Tuesday in Maryland, he bafflingly extemporized about rechristening the “fake media” the “artificial” media after freeing up the word by dubbing artificial intelligence “super intelligence.”
Trump has never stuck to the script. In fact, his verbal improvisations have often been a political strength. Yet the off-the-cuff riffs and taunts that once marked him as the ultimate outsider eviscerating the political system now risk becoming a liability as voters blame him for high prices, a Middle East quagmire and their thwarted hopes.
And in a midterm election turning on the unpopularity of his presidency and apparent denial over the haves-and-have-nots economy, his intensifying campaign blitz — mostly so far in red states — seems to lack a strategy. There’s also no evidence it’s having the intended impact, though he claimed on Truth Social on Tuesday that he was “flipping races all over the place.”
Four weeks from an election in which Democrats only need a handful of seats to win back the House, and as a close battle for the Senate goes down to the wire, Trump is being as good as his word to make the campaign about him. And he may be letting Democrats — who still lack voters’ trust, polls show — off the hook.
He’s siding with tech billionaires in telling Americans they must embrace AI data centers, which many voters loathe for their vast footprint on the landscape and for guzzling electricity and water. During a trip to boost Republicans in Nebraska on Monday, he seemed unsympathetic to ranchers angry at his move to pause tariffs on tens of thousands of tons of foreign beef to bring national prices down, saying they’d be in “big trouble if Democrats win.” In Baltimore on Tuesday, he boasted about stocks that keep hitting record highs — benefiting the richest Americans most. And he told families who dread every visit to a gas station that it’s a “small price to pay” to keep Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon — though he’d claimed to have obliterated Tehran’s nuclear capacity before launching the war.
When the president does have good news to tout, such as the $5 billion infrastructure investment by South Korea’s Hanwha Group in Philadelphia, he styles it as a personal triumph rather than embroidering a narrative about how such successes can create an economy that helps working Americans. His scattershot method rarely shows off achievements like higher-than-expected tax refunds and initiatives to cut the cost of medicine and housing in their best light.
Incumbent presidents always face a balancing act in midterms, especially when voters blame them for economic conditions. But rather than explaining the reality and offering ways to improve it, the president often conjures a fresh one.
“This is the golden age of America,” he said Tuesday. “We’re doing numbers that nobody ever thought were possible.” This doesn’t only ignore polls like one released Sunday by CBS/YouGov that found 70% of voters think his policies are hiking grocery prices. It’s a gift for Democrats when gasoline averages $4.36 a gallon, diesel is around $6.30 a gallon and mortgage rates just topped 7%.
“The president is showing, which is not unusual, that he is living in a bubble,” Michigan Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell told CNN’s Audie Cornish on Monday, specifically referring to AI data centers but exemplifying Trump’s wider issues.
Whether he’s foisting weak candidates on Republicans in states such as Texas and Georgia or insisting that his party elevate a president with an approval rating in the 30s, Trump’s entire approach to the midterms seems unwise.
“I’m asking you to pretend that I’m on the ballot,” the president pleaded with voters at his rally in Alabama last week, delighting Democratic strategists.
But could there be some method in his maelstrom?
Trump would probably be wasting his time by wooing moderate and independent voters as polls show them drifting away. In swing Senate races in places like Maine, Michigan and Georgia, he might do the GOP more harm than good.
If polls can be believed that there are tight contests in states — such as Ohio and Iowa — that Trump won by double digits two years ago, reviving that almost mystical connection with the base might offer his party the only viable form of triage.
“Democrats have placed President Trump on the ballot,” Pennsylvania Rep. Ryan Mackenzie told CNN’s Manu Raju on Tuesday. “What we need, and what I think the president is saying … is that we need Republicans to see that he is going to be on the ballot in the sense that his policies and his agenda are going to be on the ballot.”
During the 2016 campaign, the chaos was not a turnoff but an asset. Trump’s untamed nature, insults and absurd digressions eviscerated mores his supporters hated. Everyone in politics thought he’d destroyed his own campaign by denigrating the Vietnam War heroism of Sen. John McCain. But the episode showed instead that Trump was ahead of the curve, and political and media elites hadn’t realized he’d changed the game.
Back then, Trump would scour his crowds to test reactions to his most outrageous lines. The rallies often felt like a night at a party when someone was saying stuff many people agreed with but wouldn’t dare blurt out. When Trump goes off on a rant now, he may be trying to recapture that magic.
But circumstances have changed a decade later. Trump isn’t the outsider now; he is the establishment figure waging a poorly explained war and driving up prices, despite his attempts to show he’s not relinquished his rebel spirit.
His political longevity is extraordinary. But the gap between Trump’s “golden age” and the lived reality of many of his supporters is described by high housing and grocery prices. His base also appears to be narrowing, as CNN’s Aaron Blake noted Tuesday, citing New York Times/Siena College polls showing between 9% and 16% of Republican voters saying they favored the Democratic nominee in key states Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio and Texas.
Polls can change in the final days, and on November 3, they won’t matter. That’s when voters will answer the question defining Trump’s 2026 campaign.
Was it all about them?
Or him?