2026-06-14T10:30:08.850Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/14/politics/republicans-trump-2026-midterm-election-voter-turnout
选民流失而非新增支持者，正逐渐成为共和党在2026年中期选举中面临的核心威胁。
对共和党来说，这种流失风险指的是：唐纳德·特朗普总统在2024年选民中的支持率持续下滑，可能导致曾助他当选的核心选民群体放弃参加11月的中期选举。
多项民调显示，相较于民主党新增大量选票的可能性——无论是动员众多2024年未投票的选民，还是说服相当比例的2024年特朗普支持者转投民主党——这种流失风险对共和党来说威胁更大。
由此来看，2026年的选举格局与2018年的“蓝色浪潮”选举大相径庭。2018年，民主党得益于反对特朗普的新选民大规模投票，以及2016年特朗普选民的大量倒戈。如今，美国人对国家发展方向普遍不满，两党形象都严重受损，双方几乎没有战略人士预计今年会出现同样多的新选民，也不认为整体投票率能接近2018年50%的水平——那是自1912年以来中期选举的最高投票率。
“当两党都不受民众待见时，你大概率不会看到大量新选民参与投票，”得克萨斯州共和党战略学家马特·马科维亚克说道，这一观点在两党内部都得到广泛认同**。
相反，今年的选举结果可能取决于哪一方在2024年支持自己的选民中流失更多。而目前所有迹象都表明，共和党面临的这类流失风险更大。
民主党民调专家保罗·马斯林表示，对共和党而言，今年最大的挑战来自那些表示“我很沮丧、很失望、非常恼火，所以懒得去投票”的潜在选民。“那些懒得投票的人大多会是特朗普的选民，而非我们的支持者。”
在如今高度极化的政治时代，真正在两党之间转换立场的选民相对较少。例如皮尤研究中心的计算显示，在2020年和2022年都参与投票的选民中，仅有6%的人在2020年总统选举中支持某一政党的候选人，却在2022年众议院选举中支持另一政党的候选人。
正如我此前撰文所言，在现代政治中，对选举结果影响更大的通常是那些周期性参与或退出选举的选民。近年来的中期选举已证明，投票率的增减都能左右选举结果。
巴拉克·奥巴马总统任内的2010年和2014年中期选举，主要受选民流失影响。民主党选民数据与定向咨询公司Catalist（其研究成果在两党内部都备受认可）通过对个体选民记录的分析发现，在2008年和2012年奥巴马总统胜选期间参与投票的选民中，约五分之二没有在随后的每一次中期选举中重返投票站。每次不出门投票的人中绝大多数都是奥巴马的支持者——这些选民在奥巴马的竞选活动中被大规模动员起来，但当奥巴马不再参选时，民主党无法重新激活他们的投票热情。
共和党在这两次选举中凭借小幅优势的新选民巩固了自身优势：这些选民在之前的总统选举中并未投票，但在中期选举中参与了投票。但这类新选民在每次选举中所占的选民比例相对较小（均为9%）。
特朗普首任总统期间的2018年“蓝色浪潮”选举是新增选民模式的最清晰近期案例。当年民主党赢得超过40个众议院席位，重新掌控众议院。Catalist的计算显示，2016年的选民中仅有27%在2018年缺席投票，这一比例远低于奥巴马任内总统选举后的投票率下滑幅度，且两党之间的投票流失率也更为均衡。但2018年最显著的特征是反对特朗普的新选民出现异常大规模的激增：Catalist测算，2018年有13%的选票来自新选民，他们以21个百分点的压倒性优势支持民主党众议院候选人。重返投票站的选民也为民主党加分：Catalist估计，2016年和2018年都参与投票的选民向民主党倾斜了近5个百分点。
据佛罗里达大学选举实验室的分析，得益于新选民的异常激增，2018年的投票率达到50%，远超奥巴马任内两次中期选举约40%的投票率。与2014年相比，2018年各年龄段的投票率均有所上升，其中18至29岁的年轻人投票率增幅尤为明显，较四年前翻了一番。
乔·拜登总统任内的2022年选举则介于流失和新增两种模式之间。整体投票率回落至约46%，新选民进入选举队伍的数量有所减少，约三分之一的2020年选民未参加中期选举。这种复杂的投票率状况导致选举结果喜忧参半，两党基本打成平手。
2026年威胁共和党的选举动态，看起来更像奥巴马任内中期选举的模式，而非2018年的情况。
民主党几乎不可能复制共和党在奥巴马任内中期选举中取得的巨大 gains——主要是因为如今共和党所捍卫的众议院或参议院固有弱势席位，远少于当时民主党所面临的数量。但与奥巴马时代一样，今年共和党面临的最大威胁可能来自选民流失，而非新增支持者。
2024年，新选民的加入——也就是选举账面上的“新增”部分——显然让特朗普受益。Catalist的分析发现，特朗普在那些此前四次选举中投票频率最低的不规则选民中表现最佳。
但如今，民调 consistently 显示，在普遍的经济不满情绪中，特朗普在2024年未投票的潜在2026年选民中的支持率大幅下滑——这些人要么在2024年就没有投票，要么是2024年之后才年满18岁。例如最新的《纽约时报》/锡耶纳学院全国登记选民调查显示，2024年未投票的选民中，仅有21%认可特朗普的总统表现，71%的人表示不认可。他在经济、通胀和伊朗战争问题上的支持率甚至更低。皮尤今年春季的一项民调显示，2024年未投票的西班牙裔和黑人成年人中，认可特朗普的比例不到20%，即便是工薪阶层白人，这一比例也降至40%以下，民调结果已提供给CNN。皮尤发现，在所有这些群体中，特朗普的支持率都远低于他第二任期开始时在这些非选民群体中的支持率。
随着2024年未投票选民对特朗普的态度恶化，《纽约时报》/锡耶纳调查毫不意外地发现，他们在众议院选举中以31个百分点的巨大优势支持民主党。但即便在支持民主党的同时，近五分之三的2024年未投票选民也对民主党表达了负面看法。且仅有约五分之一的2024年未投票选民表示自己几乎肯定会在今年投票。
对众多战略家和观察人士而言，这些态度指向两个结论：2026年的大多数新选民可能会支持民主党，且这些新选民的数量可能远少于2018年。哈佛大学肯尼迪学院政治研究所民调主任约翰·德拉沃尔佩表示，大多数证据表明，年轻的首次投票选民不太可能重现2018年的激增势头。
“我一直希望年轻人能够参与投票，”负责监督该研究所美国年轻人民调的德拉沃尔佩说道，“但目前的信号混杂不清。”他特别指出，极少有年轻人相信自己的投票能够改善现状。“显然，人们对特朗普相关的多数政策和行动存在反感……（但）前几年的情况也并未好多少，也没有让年轻人对反对党抱有太多信心，”同为民主党年轻选民顾问的德拉沃尔佩说道。
研究选民参与度的斯坦福大学政治科学家亚当·博尼卡也表示，种种迹象并未预示今年会有大量新选民参与投票。“如果你看看刚刚发生的匈牙利大选——那场大规模的反腐败、反体制浪潮，年轻人投票率几乎翻了一番——我看不到美国目前正出现这样的环境，”博尼卡说道。“如果民主党能采取不同的策略，本有可能实现这一点，但我看到的大量证据恰恰相反，他们并未激活这类投票热潮。”
民主党也可能从另一种潜在的新增选民方式中获益——即2024年的特朗普支持者转投民主党。但在这个高度极化的时代，可能不会有太多人跨越党派界限：在《纽约时报》/锡耶纳的民调中，仅有4%的特朗普选民表示对民主党感到满意。许多民主党人士预计，大多数失望的特朗普选民不会跨党派投票，而是会选择不出门投票——就像2024年大多数失望的拜登选民所做的那样。“我们确实需要一些（支持者转投），但在两种动态中，我认为（共和党）选民的投票率下滑比选票转换更具影响力，”民主党民调专家马斯林说道。
正如马斯林所言，2026年最重要的投票率问题可能是哪一方能更好地限制其2024年选民联盟的流失。而在这方面，多数证据表明共和党面临的担忧多于民主党。“我们尚未完成全面分析，但你随处都能看到这一点：民主党的投票率似乎更高，”Catalist的首席科学家亚尔·吉察说道。“所有迹象都指向同一个方向。”
这些方向性指标之一是自特朗普重新执政以来，民主党在特别选举中得票率的持续提升。
初选投票率是另一个指标：今年德克萨斯州、佐治亚州和北卡罗来纳州竞争性的全州初选中，民主党初选的投票人数显著多于共和党初选，这与2022年和2018年的模式截然相反。
民调是第三个衡量标准。在最直接的相关问题上，一些调查发现，2024年支持哈里斯的选民中，表示肯定会在2026年投票的比例，明显高于支持特朗普的选民。这一差距在年轻人中可能尤为明显：今年春季的政治研究所民调发现，2024年支持特朗普的年轻选民中，仅有一半表示肯定会在2026年投票，而前副总统卡玛拉·哈里斯的支持者中这一比例为70%。“我认为年轻共和党人的投票率相对于民主党人会出现明显下滑，”德拉沃尔佩说道。
这些选民意向的直接衡量标准通常会夸大实际投票人数。更能说明问题的可能是选民对总统态度的投票率信号。对共和党来说的另一个警告信号是，“强烈”反对特朗普执政表现的选民比例，如今往往是“强烈”支持他的两倍。这些强烈的情绪通常是很好的投票率预测指标。
特朗普2024年选民内部支持的裂痕是另一个预兆。在特朗普的第二任期内，皮尤一直在其备受认可的2024年已验证选民研究中，追踪民众对特朗普执政表现的看法。
今年2月，皮尤首次针对特朗普第二任期进行民调，其提供给CNN的数据显示，在所有主要人口群体中，超过90%的2024年特朗普选民认可他的总统表现。但今年4月，皮尤发现，所有2024年特朗普选民的支持率已降至80%以下，其中支持过特朗普的西班牙裔选民支持率更是暴跌至66%。相比之下，哈里斯的选民则一致反对特朗普，98%的人不认可他的执政表现。
莫莉·莫拉莱斯是拉丁裔选民动员组织Somos Votantes和Somos PAC的创始人兼总裁，她表示，对特朗普经济政绩和议程的失望，给共和党带来了“巨大风险”，“这些在2024年首次投票支持特朗普的拉丁裔选民”可能“根本不会出来投票”。她也比许多其他战略家更为乐观，认为如果民主党能强化其经济信息，就能动员此前未投票的拉丁裔年轻人——“他们正努力维持生计”且“正在寻找解决方案”。
综合所有这些因素，共和党战略家马科维亚克表示，“中期选举面临的最重要问题之一”是共和党能否削弱民主党日益明显的投票率优势。“如果他们的基础选民热情高涨，而我们的不是，那结果可能会是一场真正的惨败，”他说道。
马科维亚克认为共和党有几种方法可以缓解民主党日益明显的优势。他表示，今年秋天最高法院的空缺席位可能会提振共和党选民的热情——就像2018年选举前关于布雷特·卡瓦诺大法官的激烈提名之争所起到的作用一样。他还指出，自2024年以来，民主党“几乎没有做任何事情来改善其政党形象问题”。他表示，这既可能限制民主党在独立选民中的影响力，也能通过将民主党描绘成极端分子，帮助共和党动员其基础选民。
批评人士指出了另一个可能破坏民主党潜在投票率优势的因素：特朗普政府压制选民的举措，例如试图限制蓝色州的邮寄投票，或向城市内部投票站派遣移民执法人员。“你可以看到特朗普和他的共和党盟友正在制定的抵消策略”，即“基本上 dismantle 支持自由公平选举的机构”，博尼卡说道。如果法院不阻止这类可能性，可能会极大地打乱投票率的平衡。
但如果选举主要在传统规则下进行，对共和党来说最大的投票率威胁将是：民主党基础选民团结一致、充满激情地反对特朗普——而特朗普2024年的选民联盟正明显出现裂痕。
Who stays home may threaten Republicans this year as much as who votes
2026-06-14T10:30:08.850Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/14/politics/republicans-trump-2026-midterm-election-voter-turnout
Subtraction, not addition, is emerging as the central threat to Republicans in the 2026 election.
The subtraction risk for Republicans is the prospect that President Donald Trump’s slipping approval rating among his 2024 voters will cause meaningful components of the coalition that elected him to sit out November’s midterms.
Polls suggest that’s a greater danger for the GOP than the possibility that Democrats will add a big cache of new votes — either by turning out many people who did not participate in 2024, or by convincing a significant share of 2024 Trump supporters to vote blue.
In that way, the emerging 2026 landscape looks very different from the “blue wave” election of 2018 — when Democrats were boosted by a historic outpouring of new voters opposed to Trump and substantial defections from his 2016 voters. At a moment when Americans are so negative on the country’s direction, and the image of both parties is so tarnished, few strategists on either side are expecting nearly as many new voters in November — nor do many expect overall turnout to approach its 50% level from 2018, the highest for a midterm election since 1912.
“When both parties are viewed negatively, you are probably going not to see a lot of new voters,” said Texas-based GOP strategist Matt Mackowiak, with a view widely shared on both sides**.
Instead, this year’s result could turn on which side suffers greater falloff among the voters who backed it in 2024. And all signs so far indicate that Republicans now face the greater risk from that sort of subtraction.
For the GOP, this year’s biggest challenge will be would-be voters who say, “I’m frustrated, I’m disappointed, I’m pissed off and I’m not going to bother,” said Democratic pollster Paul Maslin. “And the I’m-not-going- to-bother voters will be disproportionately (Trump’s) voters, and not ours.”
In today’s highly polarized political era, relatively few voters switch their preferences from one party to the other. The Pew Research Center, for instance, calculated that among voters who turned out in both 2020 and 2022, only 6% voted for a presidential candidate from one party in the former election and a House candidate from the other in the latter.
In modern politics, as I’ve written, the bigger impact on election outcomes usually comes from voters who cycle in and out of the electorate. Recent midterm elections have demonstrated how both the addition and subtraction elements of turnout can shape the results.
The midterms under President Barack Obama in 2010 and 2014 were defined mostly by subtraction. Catalist, a Democratic voter data and targeting firm whose work is respected in both parties, calculated from its analysis of individual voter records that about two-fifths of voters who turned out during Obama’s presidential victories in 2008 and 2012 did not return to vote in each of the subsequent midterms. Each time, a preponderant majority of those staying home were Obama voters — people the former president mobilized in big numbers for his own campaigns, but Democrats could not reactivate when he was not on the ballot.
The GOP compounded its advantage in those two elections with a small edge among new voters who turned out for the midterm after not voting in the previous presidential race. But those new voters constituted a relatively small share of the electorate (9%) each time.
The Democratic “blue wave” election of 2018, during Trump’s first presidency, when the party won over 40 House seats and recaptured the chamber, offered the clearest recent example of the addition model. Catalist calculated that only 27% of 2016 voters stayed home in 2018 — a far smaller decline from the presidential turnout under Obama — and that the drop-off was more closely balanced between the parties as well. But the most distinctive characteristic of 2018 was an unusually large surge of new voters motivated by opposition to Trump: Catalist calculated that 13% of ballots in 2018 were cast by new voters, and that they preferred Democratic House candidates by a crushing 21-point margin. Returning voters also added to the Democratic column: Catalist estimated that people who voted in both 2016 and 2018 shifted toward them by nearly 5 points.
Lifted by the unusual surge of new participants, 2018’s voter turnout hit 50% — way beyond the roughly 40% turnout for the two midterms of Obama’s presidency, according to a University of Florida Election Lab Analysis. Relative to 2014, turnout in 2018 increased for all age groups, but especially among young people — ages 18-29 — whose 2018 turnout fully doubled from four years earlier.
The 2022 election under President Joe Biden presented something of a middle path between the subtraction and addition models. Overall turnout slipped back to around 46%, with fewer new voters apparently entering the electorate and about one-third of 2020 voters sitting out the midterm election. The muddled turnout story contributed to the election’s overall mixed result, with the two parties basically fighting to a draw.
The dynamics threatening Republicans in 2026 look more like the patterns under the Obama midterms than those from 2018.
Democrats are highly unlikely to match the massive gains Republicans made in the Obama midterm elections — largely because the GOP is defending far fewer inherently vulnerable House or Senate seats now than Democrats were then. But as in the Obama era, Republicans this year likely have more to fear from subtraction than addition.
In 2024, the entry of new voters — the addition side of the ledger — clearly benefited Trump. Catalist’s analysis found that Trump ran best among irregular voters who had voted least often over the previous four elections.
Now, though, polls consistently show that amid pervasive economic discontent, Trump’s standing has cratered among potential 2026 voters who did not vote in 2024 — either because they stayed home then or only turned 18 since. The most recent New York Times/Siena College national survey of registered voters, for instance, showed that just 21% of 2024 nonvoters approved of Trump’s performance as president, with 71% disapproving. His ratings among them for handling the economy, inflation and the Iran war were even worse. Less than 20% of Hispanic and Black adults who did not vote in 2024 now approve of Trump, with the share falling to less than 40% even among working-class Whites, Pew found in a poll this spring, according to results provided to CNN. In each case that was well below Trump’s approval with those groups of non-voters when his second term began, Pew found.
With attitudes toward Trump curdling among the 2024 nonvoters, the NYT/Siena survey not surprisingly found them preferring Democrats by a resounding 31-point margin in the House elections. But even as they favored Democrats on that measure, nearly three-fifths of the 2024 nonvoters also expressed negative views about the party . And only about one-fifth of those 2024 nonvoters described themselves as almost certain to vote this year.
To many strategists and observers alike, these attitudes point toward two conclusions: Most new voters in 2026 will probably back Democrats, and there likely will be far fewer of those new voters than in 2018. John Della Volpe, director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, said most evidence suggests that young first-time voters are especially unlikely to match their 2018 surge.
“I’m always hopeful for young people to turn out,” said Della Volpe, who supervises the IOP’s poll of young Americans, “but the signals are mixed and muddied.” In particular, he notes, very few young people express confidence that their vote can improve conditions. “Clearly there is an antipathy toward most of the policies and actions around Trump… (but) the couple years before that weren’t much rosier and haven’t left younger people with a lot of confidence in the opposing party,” says Della Volpe, who also advises Democrats on young voters.
Adam Bonica, a Stanford University political scientist who studies voter participation, also says the signs do not foreshadow a big addition of new voters this year. “If you compare what we just saw in Hungary — this massive anti-corruption, anti-system surge, where youth turnout nearly doubled — I don’t see that environment sharping up in the US right now,” Bonica said. “If Democrats had played their cards differently that would have been an option, but I have seen plenty of evidence to the contrary that they are not activating that type of surge.”
Democrats might also see some benefit from the other potential way to add new voters —Trump 2024 supporters who switch to vote for them. But in this highly polarized era, not many may cross that divide: In the New York Times/Siena poll, just 4% of Trump voters said they were satisfied with the Democratic Party. Many Democrats expect most disappointed Trump voters to express their discontent not by crossing the aisle, but by staying home — just as most disappointed Biden voters did in 2024. “We have to get some (switching), but of the two dynamics, I think that turnout falloff (among Republicans) will be a more powerful factor than vote conversion,” said Maslin, the Democratic pollster.
As Maslin suggested, the most important turnout question for 2026 may be which side better limits the subtraction of voters from its 2024 coalition. And on that front, most evidence signals that Republicans face more worries than Democrats. “We haven’t done a full analysis, but you see it everywhere you look at it: Democratic turnout seems to be higher,” said Yair Ghitza, the chief scientist for Catalist. “It’s all pointing in the same direction.”
One of those directional measures is the consistent improvement in the Democratic vote share in special elections since Trump returned to office.
Participation in primaries is another indicator: In competitive statewide primaries this year in Texas, Georgia and North Carolina, significantly more people voted in the Democratic than Republican primaries, a reversal of the pattern in 2022 and 2018.
Polling offers a third yardstick. On the most direct question, some surveys have found a notably higher share of Harris than Trump supporters from 2024 saying they are certain to vote in 2026. The gap could be especially pronounced among young people: This spring’s IOP survey found that only half of Trump’s young 2024 supporters said they definitely intend to vote in 2026, compared with 70% of former Vice President Kamala Harris’ backers. “I think there is going to be a clear drop-off in turnout of younger Republicans relative to Democrats,” Della Volpe said.
These direct measures of voter intention usually overstate how many people actually vote. More telling may be the turnout signals in attitudes about the president. Another warning light for Republicans is that the share of voters who “strongly” disapprove of Trump’s performance is now often double the share of those who “strongly” approve. Those intense feelings are frequently a good turnout predictor.
The fissures in Trump’s support among his 2024 voters are another augur. Throughout Trump’s second term, Pew has measured views of Trump’s performance from people included in its respected Validated Voters study of the 2024 result.
Last February, in its first Trump second-term poll, Pew found that well over 90% of his 2024 voters in all major demographic groups approved of his performance as president, according to figures provided to CNN. But this April, Pew found that Trump’s approval rating among all his 2024 voters had fallen below 80%, while tumbling to 66% among Hispanics who backed him then. By contrast, Harris voters were unified in opposition, with 98% of them disapproving of Trump’s performance.
Melissa Morales, founder and president of Somos Votantes and Somos PAC, groups that mobilize Latino voters, said disappointment in Trump’s economic record and agenda creates “a massive risk” for Republicans that “these Latinos who voted for Trump for the first time” in 2024 will “not show up at all.” She’s also more optimistic than many other strategists that if Democrats can sharpen their economic messaging, they can motivate previously non-voting Latino young people “who are trying to figure out how to make ends meet” and “are looking for solutions.”
Considering all these factors, Mackowiak, the GOP strategist, said “in some ways the most important question facing the midterms” is whether Republicans can blunt the emerging Democratic turnout advantage. “If their base is enthusiastic and ours is not, it has a chance to be a real blowout,” he said.
Mackowiak sees several ways Republicans might mitigate the developing Democratic edge. A Supreme Court vacancy this fall, he said, could energize Republicans — as the bitter nomination fight over Justice Brett Kavanaugh did just before the 2018 election. And he noted that since 2024, Democrats “have really done almost nothing to correct their party image problem.” That could both limit their inroads with independent voters and help Republicans motivate their base voters by portraying Democrats as extreme, he said.
Critics point to another factor that could disrupt the potential Democratic turnout edge: moves by the Trump administration to suppress the vote, such as trying to limit mail voting in blue states or dispatching immigration agents to inner-city polling places. “You can see the countervailing strategy that’s developing” from Trump and his GOP allies of “basically dismantling institutions that support free and fair elections,” Bonica said.If courts don’t block such possibilities, that could significantly scramble the turnout equation.
But if the election unfolds mostly under traditional rules, the biggest turnout threat to Republicans will be the contrast between a Democratic base unified in passionate opposition to Trump — and the clear cracks opening in his 2024 coalition.