Trump’s odd midterm strategy: Give voters the opposite of what they want

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There’s a simple way to understand Republicans’ apparent plight ahead of the midterm elections.

New CNN/SSRS polls show that voters are increasingly clear about what they want. And President Donald Trump can’t or won’t give it to them.

The country craves economic relief . People think groceries and the roofs over their heads are too expensive. The vise tightened Thursday when mortgage rates rose above 7%.

With their wages disappearing more quickly, Americans are even more angry about one of the top causes — the Iran war . Even GOP voters are increasing losing confidence in the conflict amid soaring gasoline and diesel prices.

And citizens are increasingly fearful about advances in artificial intelligence . That’s no wonder after recent warnings from tech chiefs that their brainchild could threaten humanity.

Yet on this trio of issues, and many others, Trump is offering a program that is exactly opposite of what most Americans want.

He’s evoking an economic “golden age” which only he can see. He insists, falsely, that he’s bought food prices way down . As for inflation, it’s the fault of Joe Biden — who left the presidency 19 months ago.

This explains Republicans’ nightmare political environment. Only 27% in a CNN/SSRS survey this week expressed confidence in Trump’s handling of the economy. A similarly tiny cohort thought that economic conditions are good. Pity vulnerable Republicans, because two-thirds of Americans polled said the economy is “extremely important” to their vote in November.

The CNN polls also show that three-quarters of Americans don’t think the president has a plan to exit a war that’s about to enter its seventh month. On Wednesday, in a speech at the UN General Assembly, he proved them right. He revealed that he was hovering between an effort to “annihilate” Iran or to make a deal with it. His woolly prediction that the conflict will somehow end after the midterms won’t reassure two-thirds of Americans who think the US is not winning. Only 26% approve of his handling of the war.

On AI, Trump has again chosen the side of the issue guaranteed to alienate the largest crop of voters. “I want to leave it exactly where it is,” he wrote on social media Thursday. The 7 in 10 Americans who say the government should regulate it more are out of luck.

Presidents shouldn’t do things just because they are popular. Sometimes, tacking away from voters shows principles and courage. Often politicians are accused of looking at the polls, then deciding on a key issue. That’s not Trump.

But he does seem to have forgotten that lowering prices and staying out of new wars was key to his appeal in 2024. He’s honored a third pillar of his campaign — securing the southern border — but draconian deportation raids may be alienating critical moderate and Hispanic voters.

Consistently taking positions that deny the pain voters feel or refusing to listen to their fears — for instance, that they may lose their jobs to AI — is hardly a recipe for success in a democratic political system. Trump’s preference to use his political capital on things he cares about more — like his proposed triumphal arch in Washington — epitomizes his self-referential second term. It suggests he’s isolated amid West Wing officials and Cabinet members who shower him in endless public praise.

Midterm elections in a first term often result in a rebuke of a president who’s perceived as not living up to his promises, as President Barack Obama found out in 2010. Second-term midterms often dent a presidency running out of steam and reveal an electorate pining for change, as President George W. Bush learned in 2006.

Trump, after winning a nonconsecutive second term following four years out of office, risks experiencing the worst of both these worlds.

For GOP candidates running in a desperate political climate and saddled by a deeply unpopular president, the distinction hardly matters.

The president’s determination to make himself the focus of the campaign despite his unpopularity means it’s easy for Democratic challengers to pin their incumbent GOP rivals with his record.

Democrat Troy Jackson, running to oust Maine Sen. Susan Collins, warned in July that Republicans take voters for “idiots” when they argue the economy is strong. “We all have eyes, we can see our paychecks and the bills that we have and we know that we are getting screwed and we also know who is to blame,” he said.

Sen. Jon Ossoff, seeking reelection in Georgia, has coined snappy phrases to link the war with higher costs. “He promised to lower prices on Day 1, and he also promised peace,” Ossoff said at an Atlanta campaign rally, accusing Trump of building a “monument to himself while plunging us deeper into a war he doesn’t know how to end or how to win.”

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Democrats also slam Republicans over vast, power-guzzling AI data centers, painting them as another way Trump’s big tech friends profit while regular Americans suffer. “Don’t raise our electric bills, don’t poison our water, and hire local union labor. If you can’t meet that, then get out,” Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, who is running for Congress in Pennsylvania, said in a recent campaign ad.

But there are warning signs for Democrats.

In 2026, being anti-Trump may be enough. But polls show the party is yet to win back voters’ confidence after its farcical 2024 presidential campaign, when Biden pulled out late and Vice President Kamala Harris lost to Trump.

CNN’s latest polling found that voters prefer Democrats over the GOP by 8 points. But that is 4 points less than at the equivalent moment in Trump’s first term, ahead of Democrats’ recapture of the House in the 2018 midterms. Congressional Democrats are no more popular than their GOP counterparts, with only about one-quarter of Americans registering approval. And while Democrats enjoy a 10-point edge on whether they’d improve health care policy if handed power, voters are split on whether they’d improve the cost of living, citizens’ finances, corruption or foreign policy.

This comes against the backdrop of the Democratic Party’s quickening ideological battle between progressives and democratic socialists and more moderate members closer to the political center. A narrow Democratic majority in the House or Senate next year could experience a mirror image of the splits that hampered the GOP House’s legislative agenda over the last two years.

Polls offer only a current snapshot of opinion. And other factors beyond Iran, AI and the economy could break late in the campaign. Democrats, meanwhile, worry that their lead in the polls must withstand an avalanche of cash from GOP donors and Trump’s war chest. And no one can know the true nature of the electorate that will show up until November 3.

Yet Trump’s problems are so intractable there’s little hope of a quick turnaround for the GOP. And early voting starts in early- and mid-October in many states.

Five weeks out, the country is unhappy with the leadership that it has, and is yet to be convinced that any replacement will ease its fundamental challenges.

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要理解共和党在中期选举前夕的明显困境，有一种简单的方法。

CNN/SSRS最新民调显示，选民们越来越清楚自己想要什么。而唐纳德·特朗普总统既不能也不愿意满足他们的需求。

全国上下都渴望经济纾困。人们觉得食品杂货和住房都太贵了。周四，抵押贷款利率飙升至7%以上，令民众的生活压力进一步加剧。

随着工资迅速缩水，美国人对其中一个主要原因——伊朗战争——更加愤怒。在汽油和柴油价格飙升的情况下，就连共和党选民也越来越对这场冲突失去信心。

民众对人工智能的进步越来越感到担忧。考虑到科技巨头们最近发出的警告——他们的这项心血之作可能会威胁人类——这种担忧也就不难理解了。

然而，在这三个问题以及许多其他问题上，特朗普提出的方案与大多数美国人的意愿完全相反。

他营造了一种只有他自己才能看到的经济“黄金时代”。他错误地坚称，他已经大幅压低了食品价格。至于通货膨胀，他则把责任推给了19个月前就卸任的乔·拜登。

这就解释了共和党人噩梦般的政治处境。本周CNN/SSRS的一项民调显示，只有27%的受访者对特朗普处理经济的方式表示有信心。同样，认为经济状况良好的人也寥寥无几。共和党人处境堪忧，因为三分之二的受访美国人表示，经济状况对他们11月的投票“极其重要”。

CNN的民调显示，四分之三的美国人认为总统没有结束这场即将进入第七个月的战争的计划。周三，他在联合国大会上的演讲证实了他们的担忧。他透露，自己正徘徊在“消灭”伊朗和与伊朗达成协议之间。他含糊其辞地预测，这场冲突将在中期选举后以某种方式结束，但这并不能安抚三分之二认为美国没有赢得战争的美国人。只有26%的人认可他对这场战争的处理方式。

在人工智能问题上，特朗普再次选择了注定会疏远最多选民的立场。“我希望它保持现状，”他周四在社交媒体上写道。十分之七认为政府应该加强监管的美国人恐怕要失望了。

总统不应该仅仅因为某些做法受欢迎就去做。有时候，违背选民意愿反而更能体现原则和勇气。政客们常常被指责只看民调就决定关键议题。但特朗普并非如此。

但他似乎忘记了，降低物价和避免卷入新的战争是他2024年竞选成功的关键。他兑现了竞选的第三个支柱——确保南部边境安全——但严厉的驱逐出境行动可能正在疏远重要的温和派和西班牙裔选民。

一贯否认选民的痛苦或拒绝倾听他们的担忧——例如，他们可能因人工智能而失业——在民主政治体制中绝非成功的良方。特朗普更倾向于将政治资本投入到他更关心的事情上——比如他提议在华盛顿建造凯旋门——这充分体现了他自我中心的第二任期。这表明，在白宫西翼官员和内阁成员对他无休止的公开赞扬中，他显得孤立无援。

第一任期的中期选举往往会对被认为未能兑现承诺的总统进行否定，正如巴拉克·奥巴马总统在2010年所经历的那样。第二任期的中期选举往往会削弱总统的执政势头，并揭示选民渴望变革，正如乔治·W·布什总统在2006年所经历的那样。

特朗普在卸任四年后赢得非连续的第二个任期，他有可能同时面临这两种情况中最糟糕的局面。

对于在政治形势严峻、总统极不受欢迎的背景下参选的共和党候选人来说，这种区别几乎无关紧要。

尽管总统不受欢迎，但他仍决心将自己作为竞选的焦点，这意味着民主党挑战者很容易利用他的政绩来攻击共和党现任对手。

民主党候选人特洛伊·杰克逊正在竞选缅因州参议员，挑战现任参议员苏珊·柯林斯。他7月份曾警告说，共和党人声称经济强劲，是把选民当成了“傻瓜”。他说：“我们都有眼睛，我们都能看清自己的工资单和账单，我们知道自己被坑了，我们也知道是谁在背后搞鬼。”

佐治亚州参议员乔恩·奥索夫正在寻求连任，他创造了一些简洁有力的短语，将这场战争与不断上涨的成本联系起来。“他承诺在第一天就降低物价，他也承诺带来和平，”奥索夫在亚特兰大的一次竞选集会上说道，并指责特朗普“一边为自己树立丰碑，一边让我们深陷一场他既不知道如何结束也不知道如何取胜的战争”。

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民主党人还猛烈抨击共和党人建设耗电量巨大的人工智能数据中心，称这是特朗普的科技巨头朋友们牟利而普通美国民众受苦的又一手段。“别提高我们的电费，别污染我们的水源，雇用当地工会工人。如果你们做不到这些，那就滚蛋。”宾夕法尼亚州斯克兰顿市市长佩奇·科涅蒂（Paige Cognetti）在最近的一则竞选广告中说道。她正在竞选国会议员。

但民主党人也面临着一些警示信号。

到了2026年，反对特朗普或许就足够了。但民调显示，在2024年那场闹剧般的总统竞选之后，民主党尚未赢回选民的信任。当时，拜登在竞选后期退出，副总统卡马拉·哈里斯败给了特朗普。

CNN最新民调显示，选民对民主党的支持率比共和党高出8个百分点。但这比特朗普第一任期同期（即2018年中期选举民主党重新夺回众议院控制权之前）的支持率低了4个百分点。国会民主党人的支持率并不比共和党人高，只有大约四分之一的美国人表示支持他们。虽然在“如果民主党掌权会改善医疗保健政策”这一问题上，选民对民主党的支持率领先10个百分点，但在“如果民主党掌权会改善生活成本、公民财务状况、反腐败或外交政策”等问题上，选民的意见则存在分歧。

这一切的背景是民主党内部进步派、民主社会主义者与立场更为温和、更接近政治中间派的成员之间日益激烈的意识形态斗争。明年，如果民主党在众议院或参议院仅获得微弱多数，那么可能会出现与过去两年共和党控制众议院时类似的、阻碍立法议程的分裂局面。

民调只能反映当前的民意状况。除了伊朗、人工智能和经济等因素外，其他因素也可能在竞选后期产生影响。与此同时，民主党人担心，他们目前的民调领先优势必须经受住共和党捐款和特朗普竞选资金的冲击。而且，不到11月3日，谁也无法预知选民的真实倾向。

然而，特朗普的问题如此棘手，共和党短期内扭转局面的希望渺茫。而且，许多州的提前投票将于10月初或10月中旬开始。

距离大选还有五周，该国对现任领导层仍不满意，并且尚未确信任何继任者都能缓解其面临的根本性挑战。