2026-04-09T10:00:55.147Z / 美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）
作者：杰夫·泽莱尼
2小时前
发布于 2026年4月9日美国东部时间上午6:00
4月7日，参议员伊莉莎·斯洛特金在艾奥瓦州得梅因出席波尔克县民主党春季晚宴并发表演讲。（科迪·斯坎兰/《得梅因纪事报》/今日美国网络/伊玛金通讯社）
艾奥瓦州得梅因——
参议员伊莉莎·斯洛特金深谙如何在特朗普票仓获胜。如今她正尝试向其他民主党人传授这一经验。
“我们假装自己没有问题，这对我们毫无帮助，明白吗？”斯洛特金在周二晚间的一场民主党晚宴上对在场人士说道，“一味防守什么都赢不了。你必须主动出击才能取胜。”
这位来自密歇根州的参议员此次到访艾奥瓦州，为民主党带去了一剂“苦口良药”。这里是她竞选之旅的最新一站，此前她已走访了多届总统唐纳德·特朗普获胜的州。她认为，这些地区可以成为民主党在中期选举及之后重振旗鼓的核心阵地。
“如果我们能找到在中部地区获胜的方法，就能将这套策略复制到沿海地区，”斯洛特金说，“但在沿海地区奏效的策略，未必适用于中部地区。”
如今她已跻身2028年总统竞选的潜在候选人行列。近几个月来，她先后在密苏里州、爱达荷州、宾夕法尼亚州西部、威斯康星州、艾奥瓦州和俄亥俄州发表演讲，从地域和政治立场上，她都将自己定位为中间派。
她的公开露面旨在助力民主党在今年秋季的国会选举中夺回控制权。周二晚间在波尔克县民主党年度筹款晚宴上，她阐述了这一目标，但稍加引导就能看出她更宏大的政治抱负。
“我只是想成为我们党所需变革的一份子，”斯洛特金在演讲结束后接受CNN采访时表示，“我并没有狂妄到认为非我不可，但毫无疑问，我希望成为下一代民主党领导人中的一员。”
作为一名政客，斯洛特金是特朗普时代的产物。
2018年特朗普首次举行中期选举时，她在特朗普支持率颇高的选区赢得了国会席位。两年后，即便特朗普作为总统候选人参选，她仍成功连任。2024年，尽管特朗普拿下了密歇根州，她仍以微弱优势当选联邦参议员。
“要么战斗，要么逃避”
她淡化了民主党内部的意识形态分歧——这一问题势必会在2026年和2028年的竞选活动中受到考验。她表示，民主党应团结起来，翻过特朗普这一页。然而，根据CNN最新民调，仅有28%的美国人对民主党持正面看法，斯洛特金和其他民主党领导人面临的挑战显而易见。
“我们过去总在讨论，你是进步派还是温和派？这已经不再是争论的焦点了，现在的问题是要么战斗，要么逃避，”斯洛特金说道。她补充道，尽管自己背景偏温和，但“我百分百站在战斗这一边！”
去年，斯洛特金与其他五名民主党议员联合录制视频，呼吁军方成员抵制非法命令，这一行为激怒了特朗普政府。司法部曾试图起诉该团体，但最终未能获得起诉许可。
2月11日，参议员伊莉莎·斯洛特金在新闻发布会上听取参议员马克·凯利发言。此前司法部对包括二人在内的同事发起的大陪审团起诉因援引《统一军事司法法典》中“军方必须拒绝非法命令”条款而失败。（希瑟·迪尔/盖蒂图片社）
在向新选民群体介绍自己时，她会逐一讲述自己的选举经历，以此表明自己最大的优势之一，就是能在其他民主党人难以取胜的地区获胜。
去年，她在特朗普国会联席会议演讲时代表民主党回应，选择在密歇根州怀恩多特市发表演讲。她指出，2024年她和特朗普都在该选区获胜。她还向那些因特朗普重返政坛而情绪低落的人们传递了信息。
“首先，不要充耳不闻。疲惫是难免的，但美国比以往任何时候都需要你，”斯洛特金在那次演讲中说道，如今她在竞选活动中也会重复这一信息，“如果上几代人没有为民主而战，我们今天会身处何处？”
如今，即便她谈及自己与密歇根州霍利镇投特朗普票的邻居相处融洽，也会尖锐批评特朗普的外交政策、国内议程，以及她认为特朗普在任职期间中饱私囊的行为。
她说，民主党实现政治逆转的契机，必须植根于经济公平。
“无论从哪个角度看，你都不能说人们现在的日子比两年前更好，”斯洛特金说，“你没法这么说。”
“我们面临的最危险威胁”
现年49岁的斯洛特金在参选前曾是中央情报局分析师。2001年9月11日恐怖袭击发生后，她在纽约攻读研究生，随后加入情报部门。她曾三次赴伊拉克执行任务，并在乔治·W·布什和巴拉克·奥巴马两届政府的国家安全团队任职。
即便全球威胁不断升级，她表示自己最担忧的威胁其实来自国内。
“我从心底相信，对美国而言最重大、最危险的国家安全威胁并非来自境外，”斯洛特金说，“而是来自对美国中产阶级和美国梦的威胁。这才是我们面临的最危险的事情。”
在艾奥瓦州访问期间，斯洛特金与五名特朗普支持者在得梅因以南的印第安诺拉镇共进午餐，倾听不同政治立场人士的担忧。此次会面由“多数党民主党人”组织，这是一个由年轻官员组成的团体，旨在重塑并重建民主党。
4月7日，参议员伊莉莎·斯洛特金在艾奥瓦州印第安诺拉与选民交流。（汉娜·芬格哈特/美联社）
她还出席了艾奥瓦州参议员莎拉·特龙·加里奥特的医疗保健市政厅会议。加里奥特正在国会竞选中挑战共和党众议员扎克·纳恩，这场竞选是全美竞争最激烈的国会席位之一。
斯洛特金就如何与保守派邻居谈论政治给出建议，她说：“恐惧会传染，勇气亦是如此。”她敦促民主党人“明确指出对错”，并指出有关经济的无可辩驳的事实。
“你没法否认眼下加油站的油价。说什么‘一切都很好，价格在下降’，这毫无意义，”斯洛特金说，“你可以在推特上发无数次这种话，但每个人都清楚加满一箱油有多贵。”
“2029年民主党计划”
如今，野心勃勃的民主党人到访艾奥瓦州，已不再自动意味着他们在探索总统竞选之路。2020年艾奥瓦州党团会议后，该州失去了长期以来在民主党总统初选中最早投票的地位，但目前仍与密歇根州等少数几个州竞争最早投票的席位。
不过，这里仍是总统竞选抱负得以实现的地方。活动人士仍将奥巴马2008年的胜利视为入主白宫的关键跳板。奥巴马在两次大选中都拿下了艾奥瓦州，也是最后一位做到这一点的民主党总统候选人。
她清楚自己只是众多潜在总统候选人之一——包括多位州长、参议员，几乎肯定还有其他人。她呼吁民主党活动人士向候选人询问他们的具体计划，而不仅仅是倾听他们对特朗普的批评。
“你们会看到形形色色的候选人前来这里，对吧？”斯洛特金说，“我希望你们问问他们的主动出击计划——也就是他们的‘2029年计划’——以及他们将提出怎样的价值主张，作为特朗普政策的替代方案，而不是仅仅指着特朗普说‘他很坏。他很坏。他很坏。他很坏。’”
“我们都知道这一点，”斯洛特金说，“明白吗？”
Elissa Slotkin is testing whether winning in Trump country is a winning message for Democrats
2026-04-09T10:00:55.147Z / CNN
By Jeff Zeleny
2 hr ago
PUBLISHED Apr 9, 2026, 6:00 AM ET
Sen. Elissa Slotkin speaks to the Polk County Democrats during their spring dinner in Des Moines, Iowa, on April 7.
Cody Scanlan/The Register/USA Today Network/Imagn
Des Moines, Iowa—
Sen. Elissa Slotkin knows how to win in Trump country. She’s trying to show her fellow Democrats the way.
“We don’t help ourselves by pretending we don’t have a problem, OK?” Slotkin told Democrats at a party dinner here Tuesday night. “Staying on defense only doesn’t win anything. You must go on offense to win.”
The Michigan senator brought a dose of tough medicine for Democrats as she visited Iowa, the latest stop on a tour of states that President Donald Trump won, which she believes can be the center of the party’s revival in the midterm elections and beyond.
“If we can figure out how to win in the middle of the country, we can work that out on the coast,” Slotkin said. “But what works on the coast does not necessarily work in the middle of the country.”
As she joins a long list of Democrats eyeing a potential presidential candidacy in 2028, Slotkin is positioning herself squarely in the middle – geographically and politically – as she tests her message in recent months to audiences in Missouri, Idaho, western Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa and Ohio.
Her appearances are intended to bolster the party in its quest to win control of Congress this fall, an argument she delivered here at the Polk County Democratic Party’s annual fundraising dinner on Tuesday night, but her broader ambitions come alive with little coaxing.
“I just want to be part of the change that I think we need in this party,” Slotkin told CNN in an interview after her speech. “I’m not so arrogant as to think it has to be me, but I want to be part of that next generation, without a doubt.”
Slotkin, as a politician, is a product of the Trump era.
She won a seat in Congress in 2018 in a Trump-friendly district during his first midterm election. Two years later, she won reelection with Trump at the top of the ballot. She narrowly won a US Senate seat in 2024, even as Trump carried Michigan.
‘It’s fight or flight’
She downplays any ideological divisions among Democrats – a prospect that will surely be tested in the 2026 and 2028 campaigns – and said the party should find unity in turning the page from Trump. Yet with just 28% of Americans holding a favorable view of the Democratic Party, according to the latest CNN poll, the challenges facing Slotkin and other leaders is clear.
“We used to talk about, are you a progressive or are you a moderate? That’s not the debate anymore. It’s fight or flight,” Slotkin said, adding that despite a more moderate background, “I am on team fight – 100%!”
Slotkin drew the ire of the Trump administration last year for organizing a video that she and five other Democratic lawmakers recorded, urging members of the military to resist illegal orders. The Justice Department tried to charge the group, but failed to win an indictment.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin listens as Sen. Mark Kelly speaks on the failed grand jury indictment against them and other colleagues by the Department of Justice, after they recorded a video citing the Uniform Code of Military Justice that members of the military must refuse illegal orders, during a news conference on February 11.
Heather Diehl/Getty Images
As she introduces herself to new audiences, she ticks through her electoral history – race-by-race – making it clear that one of her biggest calling cards is winning in places that other Democrats have struggled to do so.
She delivered the Democratic response to Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress last year, choosing to speak from the city of Wyandotte, Michigan, which she noted that both she and Trump won in 2024. She offered a message for anyone feeling down-and-out by his return.
“First, don’t tune out. It’s easy to be exhausted, but America needs you now more than ever,” Slotkin said in that speech, a message that she reprises in her campaign trail stops today. “If previous generations had not fought for democracy, where would we be today?”
Now, even as she talks about being friendly with Trump-voting neighbors from her town of Holly, Michigan, she also delivers a searing critique of the president’s foreign policy, domestic agenda and the enrichment she believes he’s made from office.
The spark for a political turnaround for Democrats, she said, must be rooted in economic fairness.
“Under no ledger can you say that people are doing better today than we were two years ago,” Slotkin said. “You can’t say it.”
‘The most dangerous thing we face’
Slotkin, 49, was a CIA analyst long before she ran for office. She signed up for the intelligence service after attending graduate school in New York during the terror attacks on September 11, 2001. She served three tours of duty in Iraq and worked on the national security staffs of the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.
Even with global threats rising, she said, her biggest worries are closer to home.
“I believe to my bones that the most important and dangerous national security threat to the United States is not coming from abroad,” Slotkin said. “It is the threat to the middle class in America and the threat to the American dream. That is the most dangerous thing we face.”
On her visit to Iowa, Slotkin sat down for lunch with five Trump voters in Indianola, a town just south of Des Moines, to hear concerns across the political spectrum. The session was organized by Majority Democrats, a group of younger elected officials who are trying to rebrand and rebuild the party.
Sen. Elissa Slotkin speaks to voters in Indianola, Iowa, on April 7.
Hannah Fingerhut/AP
She appeared at a health care town hall meeting for Sarah Trone Garriott, an Iowa state senator who is running for Congress against Republican Rep. Zach Nunn in one of the most competitive races in the country.
Slotkin offered instructions for how to speak about politics to their conservative neighbors, saying: “Fear is contagious, but so is courage.” She urged Democrats to “call balls and strikes” and point out undisputable facts about the economy.
“You can’t argue with the price of gas at the pump right now. It’s not negotiable to be like, everything’s great, prices are going down,” Slotkin said. “You can tweet that as much as you want. Everyone knows how much the damn tank was to fill up.”
A Democratic Project 2029
Gone are the days when a visit to Iowa by an ambitious Democrat automatically signaled the exploration of a presidential campaign. The state lost its long-held position at the front of the party’s nominating calendar after the 2020 Iowa caucuses, but it is still competing for an early-slot along with Michigan and a handful of states.
Yet it remains a place where presidential aspirations can blossom, with activists still pointing to Obama’s 2008 victory as a critical launching pad to the White House. He won the state in two general elections, too, the last Democratic presidential candidate to do so.
Mindful that she is one of many Democrats eyeing a potential run – governors, senators and almost certainly others – she implored party activists to press candidates for their plans, not merely listen to their criticisms of Trump.
“You’re going to see every Tom, Dick, and Harry candidate come through here, right?” Slotkin said. “I want you to ask what their offensive plan is – their Project 2029 – and the value proposition they’re going to offer as an alternative to what Trump is doing, rather than just pointing at him and saying, ‘He’s bad. He’s bad. He’s bad. He’s bad.’”
“We know that,” Slotkin said. “OK?”
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