经济学人 | Anti-Trump Republicans 反对特朗普的共和党
In his book “The Art of the Deal”, Donald Trump admonishes businessmen who engage in cons and implores entrepreneurs to deliver results for their clients. Eventually, he says, a con artist can no longer outrun the people they’ve betrayed. “You can’t con people, at least not for long,” the former president wrote in his business bestseller, written before his political ascent. “You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press…But if you don’t deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on.” These remarks are proving prescient about the business of politics. After defeat in three key elections in a row, Republicans are catching on to the con.
唐纳德•特朗普在其著作《交易的艺术中责备那些从事欺诈行为的商人，并恳请企业家为客户带来成果。最终，他说，骗子再也无法逃脱他们背叛的人。“你骗不了人，至少骗不了很久，”这位前总统在他的商业畅销书中写道，这本书是在他的政治生涯上升之前写的。“你可以制造兴奋感，你可以进行精彩的宣传，获得各种各样的媒体报道……但如果你无法兑现承诺，人们最终还是会明白的。” 事实证明，这些言论是对政治事务的先见之明。在连续三次关键选举失利后，共和党人开始识破骗局。
New polling from The Economist and YouGov, our partner in weekly surveys of American adults, shows Mr Trump’s popularity with Republican voters sinking. According to YouGov’s latest poll, conducted between December 10th and 13th, just 46% of respondents who said they were either Republicans or independents who “lean towards” the Republican Party said they wanted Mr Trump to run for their party’s nomination again. And 37% did not want him to run. These polls were in the field before the House select committee investigating January 6th released its full report, which seems unlikely to help the former president either.
《经济学人》和我们在美国成年人每周调查中的合作伙伴 YouGov 的最新民调显示，特朗普在共和党选民中的受欢迎程度正在下降。根据YouGov在12月10日至13日进行的最新民意调查，在自称是共和党人或“倾向于”共和党的独立人士的受访者中，只有46%的人表示希望特朗普再次竞选共和党提名。37%的人不希望他参选。这些民意调查是在众议院特别委员会调查1月6日公布完整报告之前进行的，这份报告似乎也不太可能对前总统有所帮助。
Compared with previous YouGov polls, that is the highest share yet of anti-Trump members of the Republican rank-and-file. In September, when YouGov began asking this question regularly, just 27% of Republicans said they did not want the former president to run again. Since then, the share who want Mr Trump to make America great again, again, has fallen from 56% to 46% (see chart). Some of the biggest declines have been among Republican women (57% to 41%), African-Americans (66% to 42%) and Republican voters who do not have college degrees (62% to 52%).
与此前的YouGov民调相比，这是迄今为止共和党普通成员中反对特朗普的比例最高的一次。今年9月，当YouGov开始定期询问这个问题时，只有27%的共和党人表示他们不希望前总统再次参选。自那以后，希望特朗普再次让美国变得伟大的比例从56%下降到46%(见图表)。下降幅度最大的是共和党女性选民(57%到41%)、非裔美国人(66%到42%)和没有大学学位的共和党选民(62%到52%)。
Mr Trump has also been losing ground in early polls for the Republican nomination in 2024. Several recent surveys have found him trailing Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, in a head-to-head matchup. One poll from Suffolk University in Boston found support for Mr DeSantis at 56%, a full 23 points ahead of Mr Trump. Other surveys disagree. One released by Morning Consult on December 11th shows Mr Trump 18 points ahead of Mr DeSantis. The Republican primary is 14 months away, so these polls are of little use in predicting what would happen in that contest. But they do show that the former president’s return is not as inevitable as once thought.
特朗普在2024年共和党提名的早期民调中也一直处于下风。最近的几项调查发现，他在正面对决中落后于佛罗里达州州长罗恩·德桑蒂斯。波士顿萨福克大学的一项民意调查显示，德桑蒂斯的支持率为56%，足足领先特朗普23个百分点。其他民意调查则不一致。Morning Consult在12月11日发布的一份报告显示，特朗普领先德桑蒂斯18个百分点。距离共和党的初选还有14个月，因此这些民意调查对预测竞选结果几乎没有用处。但他们确实表明，这位前总统的回归并不像人们曾经认为的那样必然会发生。
True, Mr Trump does not need all Republican primary voters to unite behind him in order to secure the nomination. He could win with a plurality. That is because the election rules adopted by many states’ Republican Party committees, which oversee the selection of the presidential candidate, grant all or a significant number of a state’s delegates to the national party convention to the winner of the statewide popular vote. That is how Mr Trump was able to amass a large lead in pledged delegates early in the contest in 2016, despite polling between 30% and 35% for most of February and March, when the earliest-voting states made their choice.
诚然，特朗普不需要所有共和党初选选民都团结起来支持他，以确保获得提名。他可以以多数票获胜。这是因为许多州的共和党委员会(负责监督总统候选人的选择)所采用的选举规则，将一个州参加全国党代表大会的全部或相当数量的代表(选举人票)授予赢得全州普选的候选人。这就是特朗普能够在2016年竞选初期在承诺代表人数上大幅领先的原因，尽管在最早投票的州做出选择的2月和3月的大部分时间里，民意调查在30%到35%之间。
Though his fortunes are fading, Mr Trump may still have sufficient underlying support to repeat this trick. YouGov’s poll reveals that 38% of Republicans identify themselves as “maga” Republicans and 68% still rate Mr Trump “very” or “somewhat” favourably. If the rest of the party is unable to unite behind a challenger—as was the case in 2016 when Ted Cruz, a senator from Texas, John Kasich, then the governor of Ohio, and Marco Rubio, a senator from Florida, split the anti-Trump vote—he could consolidate enough delegates to clinch the nomination again. It is also possible, though unlikely, that the state party committees could change the delegation-selection rules before 2024.
尽管特朗普的运气正在变差，但他可能仍有足够的潜在支持来重复这一伎俩。YouGov的民意调查显示，38%的共和党人认为自己是支持“maga”(Make America great again)的共和党人，68%的人仍然对特朗普“非常”或“有点”好感。如果党内其他人无法团结起来支持一位挑战者，就像2016年德克萨斯州参议员特德·克鲁兹、时任俄亥俄州州长约翰·卡西奇和佛罗里达州参议员马可·卢比奥拉平反对特朗普选票的情况一样，他可能会巩固足够多的代表票数，再次获得提名。虽然不太可能，但州党委也有可能在2024年之前改变代表团选拔规则。
A poor performance by Republicans in this year’s midterms underlined Mr Trump’s political weaknesses. Most of the candidates for Congress that he endorsed did worse than expected and most of those running for statewide office lost. Any dispassionate observer reflecting on his performances in 2018, 2020 and 2022 will see that Mr Trump has now directly or indirectly lost key elections three times and never secured the votes of a majority of Americans (in 2016 the electoral college, not the people, put him in the White House). Most Americans long ago decided that it was time to move on. Republican voters may at last be deciding the same.
共和党人在今年中期选举中的糟糕表现凸显了特朗普的政治弱点。他支持的大多数国会候选人表现不如预期，大多数竞选州级职位的人都失败了。任何冷静的观察家回顾他在2018年、2020年和2022年的表现，都会发现特朗普现在已经直接或间接地输掉了三次关键选举，从来没有获得过大多数美国人的选票(2016年，是选举人团而不是人民把他送进了白宫)。大多数美国人很久以前就决定是时候向前看了。共和党选民可能最终也会做出同样的决定。
