The matchup that many Americans had hoped to avoid — the 2024 sequel of Biden vs. Trump — is now an inescapable reality.
许多美国人原本希望避免的竞逐——2024年拜登对阵特朗普的续演——现在已成为不可避免的现实。
It will be the country’s first presidential rematch in nearly 70 years, a consequential yet familiar collision of starkly different visions of American power, policy and democratic governance. And it will be an eight-month slog, with two nominees who polls show are deeply unpopular and who are each determined to make the race about his opponent, leaving both bent on running exceedingly negative campaigns.
这将是美国近70年来首次出现相同的两名总统候选人再次竞逐，是对美国权力、政策和民主治理的两种迥异愿景的一次重大却又熟悉的碰撞。这将是一个为期八个月的艰苦过程，民意调查显示，两名提名人都非常不受欢迎，而且他们都决心将这变成一场针对对手的选举，因此两人都会展开极为负面的竞选活动。
“I’m not the gift of all presidents,” Mr. Biden told donors at a fund-raiser last month, “but I’m sure in hell better than the last guy.”
“我在这么多总统里不算出类拔萃，”拜登在上个月的一次筹款活动中对捐助者说，“但我确信我比上一位总统强多了”。
Mr. Biden has cast Mr. Trump as a threat to the very foundations of American democracy. He has cautiously avoided discussing the many legal threats facing the former president, including four criminal indictments and one trial set to begin later this month.
拜登将特朗普树立为对美国民主基础的威胁。他谨慎地避免讨论这位前总统面临的许多法律威胁，包括四项刑事起诉和一项定于本月晚些时候开始的审判。
Mr. Trump, 77, has portrayed Mr. Biden, 81, as elderly, enfeebled and unable to perform the basic tasks of the presidency. “It’s the fascists and the communists that surround him — they’re making the calls,” Mr. Trump said on Fox News on Tuesday, in a sign of the caustic and conspiracy-tinged campaign to come. “They’re calling the shots. He’s not calling the shots.”
现年77岁的特朗普则称，现年81岁的拜登年老体弱，无法履行总统职位的基本任务。“是他周围的法西斯分子和共产主义者——他们在做决定，”特朗普周二在福克斯新闻上表示，预示了即将到来的竞选活动将带有的尖刻和阴谋论色彩。“是他们在发号施令。不是他在发号施令。”
Much has changed since Mr. Biden defeated Mr. Trump four years ago.
自四年前拜登击败特朗普以来，情况发生了很大变化。
America withdrew from Afghanistan, Russia invaded Ukraine, the Covid pandemic receded and the stock market soared. Inflation and interest rates spiked — but unemployment did not. The federal right to an abortion was swept away by the Supreme Court, border crossings surged to record highs and a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, during a riot that resulted in federal criminal charges against more than 1,200 people — including Mr. Trump himself, who is accused of being part of a conspiracy to defraud the nation by subverting the 2020 election result.
美国从阿富汗撤军，俄罗斯入侵乌克兰，新冠疫情消退，股市飙升。通货膨胀和利率高企，但失业率却没有。联邦堕胎权被最高法院推翻，边境越境数量激增至历史新高，2021年1月6日，一群特朗普支持者在一场骚乱中冲进国会大厦，导致1200多人受到联邦刑事指控——包括特朗普本人，他被指控参与颠覆2020年选举结果以求篡夺国家权力的阴谋。
The 2024 election is expected to be a referendum on all of that, and more.
2024年的选举预计将是对所有这些以及更多问题的全民公投。
Mr. Trump has not yet formally secured the delegates needed for the nomination — that could come as early as next week — but much of the party raced to coalesce behind him on Wednesday, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader who has long loathed Mr. Trump. On Thursday, Mr. Biden will have a chance to make his case for a second term during his State of the Union speech.
特朗普尚未正式获得提名所需的代表票数——那一刻最早可能在下周到来——但在周三，党内大部分人士竞相联合支持他，其中包括肯塔基州参议员米奇·麦康奈尔，这位共和党领袖长期以来一直十分厌恶特朗普。周四，拜登将有机会在国情咨文演讲中阐述他的连任理由。
Mr. Biden, who ran in 2020 to restore “the soul of the nation” by wresting the White House from Mr. Trump, has made freedom a central theme of his candidacy, highlighting abortion rights for women and the need for free elections for everyone. Mr. Trump has made immigration an animating cause of his campaign, promising to seal the border immediately if he returns to the White House, even if it requires being a “dictator,” as he put it, on Day 1.
在2020年竞选中，拜登从特朗普手中夺回了白宫，以重拾“国家之魂”，他将自由作为其竞选的中心主题，强调妇女的堕胎权以及每个人自由选举的必要性。特朗普则将移民问题作为一项让其竞选焕发生机的事业，并承诺如果他回到白宫，就会立即封锁边境，按照他的说法，即便这需要他在第一天成为一名“独裁者”。
The economy is also expected to play a critical role. Americans remain downbeat even if the economic mood has ticked upward. Mr. Biden’s own approval ratings have yet to benefit after rampant inflation in 2022 drove prices upward.
预计经济也将发挥关键作用。即使经济形势有所好转，美国人的情绪仍然悲观。在2022年严重的通货膨胀推动物价上涨之后，拜登本人的支持率始终未见起色。
Democrats are roiled by divisions over the Israel-Hamas war and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with more than 100,000 primary voters in Michigan voting for “uncommitted” in that swing state’s recent primary to protest Mr. Biden. The Biden campaign has acknowledged the president begins with soft support among some key traditional Democratic constituencies, including younger people as well as Black and Hispanic voters.
民主党人被围绕以色列-哈马斯战争和加沙人道主义危机的分歧所困扰，在密歇根州这个摇摆州最近举行的初选中，超过10万名初选选民投了“不表态”，以此抗议拜登。拜登的竞选团队承认，在本次选战的开局，一些关键的民主党传统选民群体，包括年轻人、黑人和西班牙裔选民，没有对总统表现出强有力的支持。
Mr. Trump must try to reunite his party after a primary in which Ms. Haley continued to win a sizable share of votes even after her eventual defeat had appeared almost inevitable. She ran the strongest in some of the suburban communities that have historically swung elections.
特朗普必须努力让共和党重新团结起来。在初选中，黑利继续赢得了相当大一部分选票，尽管她最终的失败看起来几乎是不可避免的。她在一些郊区社区的支持率最高，而这些社区在历史上曾左右过选举。
She did not immediately endorse him, putting the burden to win her supporters on him. “This is now his time for choosing,” Ms. Haley said on Wednesday.
她没有立即为特朗普背书，而是将赢得其支持者的重担推给了他。“现在是他做出选择的时候了，”黑利周三说。
Mr. Trump must also balance campaigning and court dates. His first trial, over allegations that he made hush-money payments to a porn star during the 2016 race, is slated to begin jury selection in less than three weeks. Mr. Trump is facing 34 felony charges and a potential maximum sentence of four years in prison. He could be convicted before Election Day, a simultaneous campaign for the White House and criminal sentencing that would have no precedent.
特朗普还必须兼顾竞选活动和出庭日期。他的第一次审判是关于他在2016年竞选期间向一名色情明星支付封口费的指控，预计将在不到三周的时间内开始挑选陪审团。特朗普面临34项重罪指控，最高可能被判处四年监禁。他可能会在选举日之前被定罪，白宫竞选和刑事判决同时进行是史无先例的。
Entering the general election, Mr. Biden trails in most public polling. His advisers prefer a different indicator: Democrats have outpaced Mr. Biden’s low approval ratings to repeatedly win down-ballot races in 2022, 2023 and a variety of special elections.
进入大选后，拜登在大多数公开民调中都落后。他的顾问们更喜欢另一个指标：民主党人屡次克服拜登的低支持率，在2022年、2023年的低级别职位选举和各种特别选举中胜出。
One looming issue for Mr. Biden that he can do little to address is his age. Voters across the spectrum express concern about America’s oldest president, who would be 86 at the end of a second term.
拜登面临的一个迫在眉睫的问题是他的年龄，而他对此无能为力。各选民群体都对这位美国最年长的总统表示担忧，他在第二任期结束时将年满86岁。
The Biden campaign has taken advantage of his incumbency to build up a financial and early organizational edge over Mr. Trump. That is an inversion of four years ago, when a relatively broke Mr. Biden began $187 million behind Mr. Trump’s operation.
拜登的竞选团队利用他的在位优势，在财务和早期组织方面建立了相对于特朗普的优势。这与四年前的情况正好相反，当时相对缺乏资金的拜登最初比特朗普落后1.87亿美元。
Mr. Biden quickly caught up back then. Mr. Trump’s team does not expect to match the Democrats dollar for dollar this time but his super PAC has been wooing big donors and Mr. Trump himself recently met in a group with one of the world’s richest men, Elon Musk. Trump allies are expected to be installed atop the Republican National Committee on Friday, and the former president has already begun fund-raising into the party apparatus, which can take in far larger checks than his campaign alone.
后来拜登很快赶了上来。特朗普的团队并不指望这次在募款上能与民主党一较高下，但他的超级政治行动委员会一直在争取大捐助者，特朗普本人最近也会见了一些人，其中包括世界上最富有的人之一埃隆·马斯克。特朗普的盟友们预计将于周五被任命为共和党全国委员会的高层，这位前总统已经开始为党组织筹集资金，这些组织可以接受比他的竞选活动大得多的支票。
For Mr. Trump, the 2024 election will be his third in a row atop the Republican ticket. His standing as the party standard-bearer — both politically and on policy — is now undisputed, having transformed the party’s positions on free trade, spending, entitlement programs and international affairs.
对特朗普来说，2024年的大选将是他连续第三次获得共和党总统候选人提名。他在政治和政策上的党内标杆人物地位已是无可争议，他改变了共和党在自由贸易、财政支出、福利计划和国际事务上的立场。
Mr. Trump has also been reshaping the political coalition that makes up the Republican Party. The G.O.P. has steadily lost ground with women and college-educated voters in the Trump era, while making fresh inroads with nonwhite voters, especially those who did not graduate from college.
特朗普还在重塑共和党的政治联盟。在特朗普时代，共和党在女性和受过大学教育的选民中支持率不断下降，同时在非白人选民中取得了新的进展，尤其是没有大学学历的选民。
In 2020, Mr. Biden carried Black and Latino voters who did not graduate from college by landslide margins, according to exit polling. But he leads that group now only narrowly, 47 percent to 41 percent, in the most recent New York Times/Siena College poll.
出口民调显示，2020年，拜登以压倒性优势赢得了没有大学学历的黑人和拉丁裔选民的支持。但在《纽约时报》和锡耶纳学院最近的民意调查中，现在，他在这一群体中只以47%对41%的微弱优势领先。
This year, Mr. Trump marched to the G.O.P. nomination with relative ease, winning each of the first four states — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — by mostly commanding margins. The former president had appeared weakened after the 2022 midterm elections, when a number of his acolytes lost critical races, but he announced his own candidacy only a week later. His indictments in 2023, beginning in New York, did not weaken him but instead appeared to bind his voters more firmly to him.
今年，特朗普相对轻松地获得了共和党的提名，以压倒性优势赢得了前四个州——艾奥瓦州、新罕布什尔州、内华达州和南卡罗来纳州。2022年中期选举后，前总统的力量似乎受到削弱，当时他的一些助手在关键的竞选中失利，但仅仅一周后他就宣布参加竞选。他在2023年从纽约开始遭到起诉，但这并没有削弱他，似乎反而将他的选民与他更紧密地联系在一起。
Mr. Trump has broadly lumped all of his mounting legal woes — which diverted more than $50 million from his political accounts to legal fees last year — as “election interference.” He faces two federal indictments by the special counsel, Jack Smith, over his handling of classified documents in Florida and his efforts to stay in power after the 2020 election. He was also indicted in Georgia for what prosecutors called a “criminal enterprise” to reverse the election result in the state.
特朗普将他日益加剧的法律困境——去年他的政治账户中挪用了5000多万美元用于律师费——笼统地归为“干预选举”。特朗普面临特别检察官杰克·史密斯的两项联邦起诉，涉及他在佛罗里达州对机密文件的处理，以及在2020年大选后试图继续掌权。他还因一个据检察官称企图篡改选举结果的“犯罪团伙”而受到检控。
It is not clear how many trials he will face before November, but the one in the hush-money case begins on March 25 — within weeks of when he is expected to formally secure the delegates needed for the nomination.
目前尚不清楚在11月之前他将面临多少次审判，但有关封口费案的审判将于3月25日开始——距离他预计正式获得提名所需的代表席位只有几周时间。
Shane Goldmacher是时报美国政治的记者，报道2024年总统竞选活动，以及塑造美国政治的主要进展，趋势和力量。可以通过邮件联系他：shane.goldmacher@nytimes.com。点击查看更多关于他的信息。
翻译：纽约时报中文网
