Trump is clearly trying to buy votes with taxpayer money

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President Donald Trump is ramping up his efforts to use taxpayer money and resources to help Republicans win the 2026 midterm elections.

And it’s not at all subtle.

At last month’s Republican midterm convention, he severely pushed the envelope by promising every adult US citizen $5,000 if Republicans hold both the House and the Senate. That was already stunning — to offer voters money for a specific outcome. But Trump has only continued pushing the envelope since then.

Over the last 10 days, he has run more than a dozen different government-funded ads that are geared toward promoting himself and his supposed accomplishments.

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Last week, Trump held two separate White House events in which he made exaggerated promises about major economic projects in key states holding crucial Senate races.

Also last week, the administration sent $500 checks to nearly 1 million Obamacare recipients.

By Friday, the administration apparently found yet more money to send out: $90 for around 20 million senior citizens to help pay for their Medicare Part B premiums.

And in recent days, Trump has re-upped his $5,000 pitch on social media and featured it prominently at rallies in Alabama and Oklahoma.

Any one of these examples would be controversial on its own. But the combination and the details make the intent unmistakable:

His promised $5,000 checks are explicitly part of a quid pro quo in which he’s trying to compel voters to give him the outcome he desires. And even some on the right have labeled it a “bribe.”

Despite the administration’s claims that the ads are public service announcements and are “very clearly not campaign ads,” they bear virtually no resemblance to past PSAs. And at least one of them is quite literally a campaign ad run by Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. Some Republicans have also criticized this, with outgoing Sen. John Cornyn of Texas saying it’s “not even a close question” that the ads are inappropriate.

Both of the economic projects Trump announced — in Alaska and Iowa — were quickly revealed to be far less iron-clad than his pitch made them sound.

Trump has now sent or floated giving Americans direct payments in three different ways, all with just weeks to go before the election.

Trump’s $500 checks to Obamacare recipients come with a politicized letter from him promoting his administration’s anti-fraud efforts and attacking the Biden administration, which the letter claims “overcharged you.”

The stated purposes behind both the $500 and $90 payments are highly suspect. Experts dispute that Obamacare policyholders were wrongly overcharged. And the $90 payments to seniors come from the $2.2 billion Medicare Improvement Fund , which the Congressional Budget Office says is supposed to be used “to make improvements to Medicare’s hospital and medical insurance programs.”

In other words, Trump is mining whatever direct benefits he can muster from his official job to pump up himself and Republicans ahead of the midterms.

And if that sounds uncharitable, it’s worth recalling what Trump himself has said about such things.

He repeatedly accused the Biden administration of trying to buy votes even when the proximity to the election wasn’t as obvious and the money was appropriated by Congress.

In 2023, he accused Biden of buying votes by using congressionally appropriated funds to do infrastructure projects.

“He goes around saying, ‘We’ll build a bridge. We’ll build whatever you want,’ you know – trying to buy votes,” Trump said in December 2023.

And in both 2023 and 2024, Trump painted Biden’s efforts to cancel student loan debt through executive action as part of a similar effort. He even called it “corrupt.”

“We have a crooked president. We have a corrupt president, very corrupt,” Trump said in June 2023. “But this was a way of trying to buy votes. That’s all it was.”

The question from there is: Will Trump’s efforts help his cause?

There are reasons to doubt they will.

The ads have real money behind them , judging by the fact that there are so many of them and that they are being run during expensive time periods like NFL games. But they could seemingly backfire by putting a president that Americans overwhelmingly dislike front and center in the campaign.

The $90 and $500 payments are real money. But the former is a small amount, and the latter will go to only roughly one of out every 200 eligible voters.

And Americans appear skeptical that they would ever actually get the $5,000 checks. A CNN poll last month showed 77% said it was “not too likely” or “not at all likely” that they would get the money as promised if Republicans hold both the House and Senate.

And those who believed it were overwhelmingly those who approve of Trump; just 11% of his disapprovers thought it was even “somewhat likely.”

(Indeed, Americans are right to be skeptical. The more than $1 trillion cost of such payments would balloon the deficit and risk spiking inflation. It’s also pretty evident that Congress would have to sign off on them , and even if Republicans are united on the payments — which they’re not — it would require Democratic votes to clear the Senate’s 60-vote threshold.)

And it appears voters might judge Trump negatively for even making the promise. The CNN poll showed Americans said 64%-36% that it was not a “worthwhile” use of federal government money, while a Reuters-Ipsos poll showed registered voters said 66%-18% that it was “inappropriate” for Trump to make such a promise.

However, if even a small percentage of voters finds themselves compelled by Trump’s handouts or his promises of major projects in Alaska and Iowa, that could matter on the margins.

But regardless of the political impact, a big consequence here is that Trump is obliterating the line between official business and party politics.

安娜·莫尼梅克/盖蒂图片社

唐纳德·特朗普总统正在加大力度，利用纳税人的钱和资源帮助共和党赢得2026年中期选举。

而且这毫不含蓄。

在上个月的共和党中期选举大会上，他极尽所能地承诺，如果共和党同时掌控众议院和参议院，将向每位成年美国公民发放5000美元。这本身就令人震惊——竟然用金钱来换取选民的支持。但自那以后，特朗普的举动却愈演愈烈。

在过去的 10 天里，他投放了十几则由政府资助的广告，旨在宣传他自己和他所谓的成就。

通往2026年中期选举的道路现在开始

每周，亚伦·布莱克都会以犀利的分析，拨开政治迷雾，深入剖析可能决定国会控制权的选情、候选人和趋势。订阅《20/26 视野》周刊，了解今年中期选举的最新动态。

上周，特朗普在白宫举行了两场活动，期间他对一些关键州的重大经济项目做出了夸大的承诺，这些州都面临着至关重要的参议院选举。

上周，政府还向近100万奥巴马医改受益人寄出了500美元的支票。

到周五，政府显然又找到了更多资金可以发放：向大约 2000 万老年人发放 90 美元，以帮助支付他们的 Medicare B 部分保费。

最近几天，特朗普在社交媒体上再次宣传他的 5000 美元捐款计划，并在阿拉巴马州和俄克拉荷马州的集会上重点宣传了该计划。

这些例子单独来看都可能引发争议。但它们结合起来，再加上细节的考量，其意图就显而易见了：

他承诺的5000美元支票显然是某种交换条件，他试图以此胁迫选民给他想要的结果。甚至一些右翼人士也称之为“贿赂”。

尽管政府声称这些广告是公益广告，而且“显然不是竞选广告”，但它们与以往的公益广告几乎没有任何相似之处。其中至少有一则广告实际上是特朗普2024年总统竞选团队投放的竞选广告。一些共和党人也对此提出了批评，即将卸任的德克萨斯州参议员约翰·科宁表示，这些广告不妥“毫无疑问”。

特朗普宣布的两项经济项目——分别在阿拉斯加州和爱荷华州——很快就被证明远没有他宣传的那样万无一失。

距离大选仅剩几周时间，特朗普已经提出或暗示将以三种不同的方式向美国民众直接发放现金。

特朗普向奥巴马医改受益人发放的 500 美元支票附带一封他亲笔写的政治化信件，信中宣传了他政府的反欺诈举措，并抨击拜登政府，称拜登政府“多收了你们的钱”。

500美元和90美元这两笔款项的用途都令人高度怀疑。专家们对奥巴马医改的投保人被错误多收费的说法提出异议。此外，发放给老年人的90美元款项来自22亿美元的医疗保险改进基金，国会预算办公室称该基金本应用于“改进医疗保险的医院和医疗保险计划”。

换句话说，特朗普正在利用他作为官员所能获得的任何直接利益，在期中选举前为自己和共和党人造势。

如果这听起来有些刻薄，那么不妨回顾一下特朗普本人对此类事情的言论。

他多次指责拜登政府试图收买选票，即便在距离选举日并不那么明显，而且资金是由国会拨款的情况下也是如此。

2023年，他指责拜登利用国会拨款进行基础设施建设项目来收买选票。

“他到处说，‘我们会建一座桥。我们会建任何你想要的东西，’你知道——试图收买选票，”特朗普在2023年12月说道。

在2023年和2024年，特朗普都将拜登通过行政命令取消学生贷款债务的努力描绘成类似举措的一部分。他甚至称之为“腐败”。

“我们有一个腐败的总统。我们有一个贪污腐败的总统，非常贪污腐败，”特朗普在2023年6月说。“但这只是他试图收买选票的一种手段。仅此而已。”

由此产生的问题是：特朗普的努力能否帮助他实现目标？

有理由怀疑他们会这样做。

从广告数量之多以及投放时间（例如NFL比赛日）等高成本时段来看，这些广告背后显然投入了巨资。但这些广告也可能适得其反，让一位绝大多数美国民众都不喜欢的总统成为竞选的核心人物。

90美元和500美元的补贴都是实实在在的钱。但前者金额较小，而后者大约只会发放给每200名符合资格的选民中的一人。

美国人似乎怀疑他们是否真的能收到这5000美元的支票。CNN上个月的一项民调显示，77%的受访者表示，如果共和党继续掌控众议院和参议院，他们“不太可能”或“完全不可能”收到承诺的这笔钱。

而相信这一点的人绝大多数是支持特朗普的人；只有 11% 的反对者认为这“有点可能”。

（的确，美国人的怀疑不无道理。超过1万亿美元的此类支付将使赤字大幅膨胀，并可能导致通货膨胀飙升。而且很明显，国会必须批准这些支付，即使共和党人就此达成一致——但事实并非如此——也需要民主党人的支持才能超过参议院60票的门槛。）

而且，选民似乎可能会因为特朗普做出这样的承诺而对他产生负面看法。CNN的民调显示，64%的美国人认为用联邦政府的钱做这件事“不值得”，而只有36%的人持相反意见；路透社-益普索的民调则显示，66%的登记选民认为特朗普做出这样的承诺“不合适”，而只有18%的人持相反意见。

然而，即使只有一小部分选民受到特朗普的施舍或他在阿拉斯加和爱荷华州的重大项目承诺的诱惑，这也可能会在一定程度上影响选举结果。

但无论政治影响如何，一个重大后果是，特朗普正在抹杀官方商业与党派政治之间的界限。