2026年5月4日，美国东部时间下午1:16 / CNN政治频道
亚伦·布莱克 分析
2025年5月1日，佛罗里达州棕榈滩，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普在棕榈滩国际机场走下空军一号。
罗伯托·施密特/盖蒂图片社
唐纳德·特朗普总统不需要任何邀请——甚至不需要任何证据——就可以宣称选举“被操纵”，过去11年来他已经多次这么做了。
但不妨想象一下：如果特朗普指责对手操纵选举时，对手居然公开宣称“这会帮助我们赢得选举！”
而这正是如今特朗普一遍又一遍在做的事。
近几个月来，他推动了多项行政和立法举措——从废除参议院阻挠议事规则，到要求选民提供身份证件和公民身份证明，再到取消邮寄选票——并 repeatedly将这些举措宣传为有助于共和党赢得2026年中期选举的方案。
相关报道 2024年11月5日，纽约选民在投票站填写选票。莱昂纳多·穆尼奥斯/法新社/盖蒂图片社/资料图 特朗普与共和党推动在选举日前大规模清理选民名册，挑战先例 阅读时长6分钟
而这种直白粗暴的政治策略愈发不加掩饰。
特朗普最新的表态出现在上周最高法院作出裁决之后：最高法院裁定路易斯安那州国会选区地图存在违宪的党派操纵选区划分问题，并进一步削弱了《选举权法案》，这可能会让共和党在南方各州更轻松地绘制对己方更有利的选区地图。这可能会在未来数年让美国众议院的席位格局向共和党倾斜。
特朗普敦促其阵营迅速采取行动。
他呼吁各州——即便那些已经启动投票程序的州——尽快按照最高法院的裁决调整2026年选举的选区地图。
“这比行政便利性更重要，”特朗普在Truth Social上写道，“其附带效应是，共和党将在即将到来的中期选举中拿下超过20个众议院席位！”
在这张2024年11月的照片中，人们前往新奥尔良第九区圣大卫浸信会教堂的投票站投票。
桑迪·哈夫克/法新社/盖蒂图片社
首先需要明确的是，最高法院并未要求他所提议的做法。尽管最高法院的裁决进一步削弱了《选举权法案》，但该裁决仅适用于路易斯安那州的选区地图。要弄清楚它可能如何适用于其他州还需要时间。而且各州如何合法地作废已经投出的选票，目前完全没有定论。
至少可以说，特朗普的提议极为极端。
但这绝非他首次以共和党将在中期选举中获益为由，祭出这种孤注一掷的策略。今年3月在共和党议员会议上，特朗普告诉其同僚，通过他备受推崇的“拯救美国法案”——该法案将要求人们在登记投票时提供公民身份证明，以及其他多项改革——将“确保中期选举胜利”。
特朗普随即补充道：“我这么说完全不是为了这个目的。”
但他却一直在提及这个目的。
2月底在佐治亚州的一次演讲中，他表示自己的选举改革举措将意味着“我们永远不会输掉任何一场选举。未来50年，我们都不会输掉选举。”
就在当月早些时候，他告诉播客主持人、前联邦调查局高级官员丹·邦吉诺，共和党应该接管特定选区的投票工作。
“共和党应该说——我们至少应该接管15个地区的投票工作，”特朗普说，“共和党应该将投票工作全国化。”他发表这番言论的前一周，联邦调查局刚刚搜查了佐治亚州富尔顿县的一个选举办公室。
但请注意，特朗普并未说应由联邦政府接管投票工作，而是明确表示应由共和党来做。尽管白宫辩称他当时指的是全国性选民身份证要求的必要性，但特朗普后来告诉记者，“州政府是联邦政府的代理人”，如果某个州“无法妥善组织选举”，在椭圆形办公室陪同他的共和党议员“应该就此采取行动”。
去年11月，特朗普在与匈牙利总理维克多·欧尔班的会晤中表示，共和党应该废除阻挠议事规则。
“如果我们这么做，我们永远不会输掉中期选举，也永远不会输掉大选，因为我们已经为民众、为人民、为国家制定了太多不同的政策，输掉选举是不可能的，”他说。
早在路易斯安那州的裁决出台之前，特朗普就曾直白地将中期选举期间的选区操纵划分行动宣传为帮助共和党赢得选举的手段。
他曾告诉CNBC，在得克萨斯州，“我们理应多拿下5个席位。”
得克萨斯州的选区地图通过后，他告诉共和党人，如果他们在其他州划分更多倾向共和党的选区，并取消邮寄投票和纸质选票，民主党就没有翻盘的机会了。
2025年8月20日，得克萨斯州奥斯汀州议会期间，州议员马特·摩根展示新拟定的得克萨斯州国会选区地图。
塞尔吉奥·弗洛雷斯/路透社
“如果我们做到这两件事，我们将额外拿下100个席位，这场肮脏的政治游戏就结束了，”特朗普在Truth Social上写道。
两党都会为了政治利益操纵选区划分。但一般来说，议员们不会公开将其明确表述为这个目的。而特朗普则毫无顾忌地用赤裸裸的政治语言谈论新的选区地图。
需要明确的是，至少在选区划分问题上，他所提议的并非公平公正；而是要让众议院的席位格局向共和党倾斜。
尽管操纵选区划分已经减少了美国众议院具有竞争性的选区数量，但现行的选区地图至少产生了与全国普选票结果基本相符的席位分配。在过去四次选举中，两党赢得的众议院席位比例与其在全国两党普选中的得票比例基本相当。
由于民主党成功反击，中期选举期间的选区操纵划分行动并未完全按照特朗普和共和党领导人的设想推进。但如今，在最高法院作出裁决后，特朗普正试图以另一种方式扩大优势。
他最新的想法是一项极其孤注一掷的党派权力攫取行动，将作废已经投出的选票。
但为了赢得选举，他似乎不惜一切代价。
Trump keeps saying the quiet part out loud on changes to the 2026 election
May 4, 2026, 1:16 PM ET / CNN Politics
Analysis by Aaron Blake
President Donald Trump steps off Air Force One at Palm Beach International Airport on May 1 in Palm Beach, Florida.
Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images
President Donald Trump doesn’t need any invitation — or any evidence, really — to claim that an election is “rigged,” as he’s done many times over the last 11 years.
But just imagine for a second that, when his foes did something that Trump claimed amounted to rigging an election, they announced it by saying, “This is going to help us win elections!”
Because that’s what the president has now done, over and over again.
As he’s pushed a number of executive and legislative actions in recent months — from nixing the Senate filibuster, to requiring voter ID and proof of citizenship, to eliminating mail ballots — he’s repeatedly pitched them as ideas that will help Republicans win the 2026 midterm elections.
Related article Voters fill out ballots at a polling station in New York on November 5, 2024. Leonardo Munoz/AFP/Getty Images/File Trump and GOP push for aggressive voter roll purges up until Election Day, testing precedent 6 min read
And this brutalist political strategy is getting less subtle.
Trump’s latest missive came on Sunday, after the Supreme Court ruled last week that Louisiana’s congressional map is an unconstitutional gerrymander and further chipped away at the Voting Rights Act, potentially allowing Republicans to redraw maps in the South a lot more favorably for them. That could tilt the US House map toward the GOP for years to come.
Trump urged his side to act post-haste.
He called on states — even those that have already begun voting — to quickly change their maps for the 2026 election to supposedly comply with the Supreme Court ruling.
“That is more important than administrative convenience,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The byproduct is that the Republicans will receive more than 20 House Seats in the upcoming Midterms!”
In this November 2024 photo, people arrive to vote at a polling station at St. David’s Baptist Church in the 9th Ward area of New Orleans.
SAandy Huffaker/AFP/Getty Images
The first thing to note is that what he’s pitching was not demanded by the Supreme Court. While its ruling further diminished the Voting Rights Act, it applies only to Louisiana’s map. It will take time to figure out how it might apply to other states. And it’s not at all clear how it would be legal for states to invalidate votes that have already been cast.
Trump’s is an extreme proposal, to say the least.
But it’s hardly the first time he has pitched such a desperate ploy by invoking midterm gains for the GOP. At a conference of Republican lawmakers in March, Trump told his party that passing his much-prized “SAVE America Act” — which would force people to show proof of citizenship to register to vote, among other changes — would “guarantee the midterms.”
Trump qualified that by saying, “I’m not doing it for this reason at all.”
And yet he keeps mentioning that reason.
In a late February speech in Georgia, he said that his voting changes would mean, “We’ll never lose a race. For 50 years, we won’t lose a race.”
Earlier that month, he told podcaster and former top FBI official Dan Bongino that Republicans should take over voting in specific jurisdictions.
“The Republicans should say — we should take over the voting in at least 15 places,” Trump said. “The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.” His comments came less than a week after the FBI had searched an elections office in Fulton County, Georgia.
But notice that Trump didn’t say the federal government should take over the voting, but specifically that Republicans should do it. While the White House argued he’d been referring to the need for a national voter ID requirement, Trump later told reporters that “a state is an agent for the federal government” and that the GOP lawmakers standing behind him in the Oval Office “should do something about it” if a state “can’t run an election.”
In November, Trump said at a meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán that Republicans should eliminate the filibuster.
“And if we do it, we will never lose the midterms, and we will never lose the general election, because we will have produced so many different things for our people, for the people, for the country, that it would be impossible to lose an election,” he said.
And long before the Louisiana ruling, Trump bluntly pitched his mid-decade gerrymandering push as being about helping Republicans win elections.
He told CNBC at one point that in Texas, “We are entitled to five more seats.”
After the Texas map passed, he told Republicans that if they gerrymandered more GOP-leaning seats in other states and eliminated mail-in voting and paper ballots, it would erase Democrats’ chances.
State Representative Matt Morgan holds a map of the new proposed congressional districts in Texas during a legislative session in Austin, Texas, on August 20, 2025.
Sergio Flores/Reuters
“If we do these TWO things, we will pick up 100 more seats, and the CROOKED game of politics is over,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Both parties gerrymander for political benefit. But generally speaking, lawmakers don’t pitch it as being expressly about that. Trump, though, has shown no compunction about discussing new maps in raw political terms.
And to be clear, what he’s proposing — on gerrymandering, at least — isn’t a matter of fairness; it’s about tilting the House landscape in the GOP’s favor.
While gerrymandering has reduced the number of competitive US House districts, the maps in use have at least produced results that closely reflect the national popular vote. Over the last four elections, both parties have won shares of House seats that have been commensurate with their shares of the national two-party vote.
The mid-decade gerrymandering push didn’t exactly pan out how Trump and GOP leaders had envisioned, given Democrats’ success in fighting back. But now Trump wants to press the advantage in another way after the Supreme Court ruling.
His latest idea is an extremely desperate partisan power grab that would invalidate votes already cast.
But whatever it takes to win an election, it seems.
