美国的两大主要政党在许多问题上意见不一，但它们共用一个口号。“我们必须变得太大而无法被操纵，”卡玛拉·哈里斯在9月22日对一群听众说。10月1日，唐纳德·特朗普呼吁在中期选举中取得“太大而无法被操纵”的胜利，因为“他们在这个国家操纵选举”。两党都敦促各自的支持者投票，同时警告另一方在作弊。与此同时，学者和记者们已经得出一个结论：民主倒退。
AMERICA’S TWO main parties do not agree on much, but they share a slogan. “We’ve got to be too big to rig,” Kamala Harris told an audience on September 22nd. On October 1st Donald Trump called for a midterm win “too big to rig” because “they rig elections in this country.”Both parties urge their own supporters to vote while warning that the other side cheats. Scholars and journalists, meanwhile, have settled on a diagnosis: democratic backsliding.
许多选民本身也感到焦虑。展望11月3日的中期选举，只有49%的受访者期待一次自由公平的选举。在特朗普的影响下，共和党人尤其持怀疑态度。民主党人担心他的政府会干预选举。少数族裔选民担心在投票站遭到移民和海关执法局（ICE）特工的骚扰。
Many voters themselves are anxious. Looking towards the midterms on November 3rd, only 49% of respondents expect a free and fair election. Under Mr Trump’s influence Republicans are especially cynical. Democrats worry about election interference from his administration. Minority voters fear harassment from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at polling stations.
尽管存在这些焦虑，美国的选举实际上比“倒退”叙事所允许的更健康。事实上，在2022年和2024年选举之前，也曾存在相当程度的焦虑。当时，就像现在一样，美国人担心选举干预、选民欺诈和政治暴力。但最终，投票率在历史标准下很高，绝大多数美国人对选举结果表示信心。
Anxieties notwithstanding, American elections are healthier than the backsliding narrative allows. Indeed, there was also considerable anxiety in advance of both the 2022 and 2024 elections. Then, as now, Americans worried about election interference, voter fraud and political violence. But in the end turnout was high by historical standards and the vast majority of Americans expressed confidence in the outcomes.
美国民主建立在能够制衡集中权力的持久制度之上。中期选举在这方面很重要。“中期定律”——即总统所属政党在其任期中途会失去国会席位——自1938年以来的22次投票中，有20次得到了验证。两次例外出现在特殊情况下：1998年对共和党弹劾比尔·克林顿的推动产生的反弹，以及2002年乔治·W·布什的“反恐战争”。在特朗普的第一个任期中，这种模式是正常的：共和党在2018年失去了众议院的多数席位。
American democracy rests on durable institutions capable of checking concentrated power. Midterm elections are important in this regard. The “midterm law”—that the president’s party loses congressional seats midway through his term—has held in 20 of the 22 votes since 1938. The two exceptions arose under unusual circumstances: a backlash against the Republican drive to impeach Bill Clinton in 1998 and George W. Bush’s “war on terror” in 2002. In Mr Trump’s first term the pattern was normal: Republicans lost their majority in the House of Representatives in 2018.
值得注意的是，即使大多数美国民众批准总统的表现，总统所在的政党在中期选举中仍会失去席位。当总统不受欢迎且经济疲软时，这种损失会更加严重。特朗普的支持率徘徊在30多点。9月份，消费者信心跌至2014年以来的最低水平，部分原因是燃油价格高企。自1992年以来的中期选举中，总统所在政党平均失去了25个众议院席位。目前的共和党多数席位，在净损失三个席位后将不复存在。
Notably, the president’s party loses seats in midterms even when most Americans approve of the president’s performance. The penalty grows when the president is unpopular and the economy weak. Mr Trump’s approval rating languishes in the mid-30s. In September consumer confidence fell to its lowest level since 2014, partly because of high fuel prices. Across midterms since 1992 the president’s party has lost an average of 25 House seats. The current Republican majority disappears with a net loss of three.
为了防止损失，特朗普促使共和党控制的州重新划定选举地图。由此产生的选区划分操纵（gerrymandering）可能为共和党赢得了一些席位，但少于他们所期望的数量。但同样，美国的制度仍保留着防范总统试图操纵选举的保障措施。总统只能在他所在政党掌握主导权的州要求新地图，而加利福尼亚州的民主党人以自己的选区划分操纵回应了德克萨斯州的一次选区划分操纵。
In an effort to forestall losses, Mr Trump induced Republican-controlled states to redraw their electoral maps. The resulting gerrymanders likely netted some Republican seats, albeit fewer than they had hoped. But here again American institutions retain safeguards against a president’s effort at electoral deck-stacking. A president can demand new maps only in states where his party holds the pen, and Democrats in California answered a gerrymander in Texas with one of their own.
《库克政治报告》（The Cook Political Report）预测，重新划区将为共和党带来净增四个席位，远远不足以保护该党的众议院多数席位。
The Cook Political Report projects a net Republican gain of four seats from redistricting, not nearly enough to protect the party’s House majority.
特朗普曾提出，随后又否定了推迟或取消中期选举的想法。无论如何，这一情景始终极不现实。选举日由联邦法律固定，宪法规定了官员任期结束的日期。选举在成千上万个地方司法管辖区中分散管理，这使总统无法轻易操纵选举结果。特朗普试图将邮政服务变成针对邮寄选票的这种杠杆，但遭到法院的阻止。
Mr Trump floated and subsequently disavowed the idea of postponing or cancelling the midterms. Regardless, that scenario was always wildly implausible. Election day is fixed by federal statute, and the constitution sets the date when officeholders’ terms end. The decentralised administration of elections across thousands of local jurisdictions denies the president any easy lever to manipulate outcomes. Mr Trump’s attempt to turn the postal service into such a lever against mail-in ballots was thwarted by the courts.
比起干预选举，更有可能的是，落选的候选人会拒绝承认失败，声称对手作弊。败者的同意是民主合法性最基本的要素。许多人担心特朗普在2020年拒绝承认失败会在政治体系中蔓延。但事实并非如此。Bright Line Watch研究小组检查了2020年和2022年的全部884场国会选举。绝大多数落选候选人公开承认了失败。明确拒绝承认失败的情况主要集中在首次参选且以较大差距落选的候选人中。
More likely than interference with the election is that unsuccessful office-seekers will refuse to concede, claiming their opponents cheated. Nothing is more basic to democratic legitimacy than the loser’s consent. Many feared that Mr Trump’s refusal to concede in 2020 would spread across the political system. It has not. Bright Line Watch, a research group, examined all 884 congressional races in 2020 and 2022. The overwhelming majority of losing candidates publicly acknowledged defeat. Explicit refusals were concentrated among first-time candidates who had lost by wide margins.
而且，2022年此类拒绝的数量少于2020年。仍有政治前途需要维护的候选人依然会承认失败。当他们这样做时，特朗普关于“操纵”选举的抱怨就失去了力量。
And there were fewer such refusals in 2022 than in 2020. Candidates with political careers to protect still concede. When they do, Mr Trump’s complaints of a “rigged” election lose their force.
然而，这并不意味着可以掉以轻心。我与杰弗里·莱曼和克里斯蒂娜·沃尔布雷希特的研究发现，长期被视为民主规范守护者的党内活动人士，如今对败者同意的承诺程度已不高于普通公民。任何基本民主价值的恶化都令人担忧。
None of this is cause for complacency. My research with Geoffrey Layman and Christina Wolbrecht finds that party activists, long regarded as guardians of democratic norms, are now no more committed to losers’ consent than ordinary citizens. Any deterioration in basic democratic values is worrying.
尽管如此，自2020年以来美国选举的记录仍然令人鼓舞。选举管理有所改善。尽管许多职业行政人员在2020年后因威胁和骚扰增加而辞职，但选民的投票体验实际上有所提升。2022年和2024年，等待超过30分钟才能投票的选民比例均低于2020年，且长期存在的种族差距有所缩小：到2024年，黑人、白人、西班牙裔和亚裔选民报告的等待时间大致相当。
Nevertheless, the track record of American elections since 2020 has been encouraging. Election administration has improved. Although many career administrators resigned amid increased threats and harassment after 2020, the voter experience actually got better. In both 2022 and 2024 the share of people waiting more than 30 minutes to cast their ballot was lower than in 2020, and the long-documented racial gap narrowed: by 2024 black, white, Hispanic and Asian voters reported comparable waits.
综合来看，这些证据表明美国民主具有韧性。这种韧性并非建立在政治家的克制之上，而在于难以操纵的制度安排，包括固定的选举日期、分散化的管理以及官员在各自选区独立选举产生，并有自身利益需要维护。
Taken together, the evidence points to a resilient democracy. That resilience rests not on politicians’ restraint but on institutional arrangements that are difficult to manipulate, including fixed election dates, decentralised administration and officials independently elected in their own constituencies, with their own interests to protect.
詹姆斯·麦迪逊曾为众议院两年任期辩护，称其赋予国会“对人民的直接依赖和深切同情”。这种依赖将在11月展现。民主党人有望赢得众议院多数。去年看似稳固共和党的参议院如今也进入竞争态势。若任一议院控制权易手，特朗普先生将不得不与国会谈判以资助其优先事项，并在其任期剩余时间里面对其监督。中期选举是宪法对每位总统施加的常规制衡。
James Madison defended the House’s two-year terms as giving Congress “an immediate dependence on, and an intimate sympathy with, the people”. That dependence will be on display in November. Democrats are favoured to win a House majority. The Senate, which looked safely Republican last year, is now in play. If control of either chamber changes hands, Mr Trump will have to bargain with Congress to fund his priorities and face its oversight for the rest of his term. Midterm elections are a routine check the constitution imposes on every president.
无论其他因素如何削弱，这一防护栏仍然有效。■ 弗朗西斯·E·李是普林斯顿大学政治与公共事务教授。她是《国会的论点》《党派的局限》（詹姆斯·M·卡里合著）和《后疫情时代》（斯蒂芬·马塞多合著）的作者。
Whatever else has weakened, that guardrail holds. ■ Frances E. Lee is a professor of politics and public affairs at Princeton University. She is the author of “A Case for Congress”, “The Limits of Party” (with James M. Curry) and “In Covid’s Wake” (with Stephen Macedo).