Vice President Kamala Harris, who has struggled for nearly four years in President Biden’s shadow, was thrust on Sunday into the center of a remarkable political drama that could culminate with her becoming the first woman of color at the top of a major-party presidential ticket.
副总统卡马拉·哈里斯近四年来在拜登总统的阴影下一直面临困境，周日她被推到了一场引人注目的政治大戏的中心，最终可能由此成为第一位担任主要政党总统候选人的有色人种女性。

Mr. Biden’s decision to abandon his re-election bid and endorse Ms. Harris to succeed him puts her in a powerful, but not certain, position to become the new face of the Democratic Party, charged with preventing former President Donald J. Trump from returning to the Oval Office for another four years.
拜登决定放弃竞选连任，并支持哈里斯接替总统之位，这使她处于一个强有力但并不确定的位置，可能成为民主党的新面孔，负责阻止前总统唐纳德·特朗普重返白宫，再干四年。

“Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and beat Trump,” Mr. Biden wrote in a social media post after he announced his decision to step aside. “Let’s do this.”
“今天，我全力支持并支持卡马拉成为我们党今年的提名人。民主党人，是时候团结起来击败特朗普了，”拜登在宣布让位决定后的社交媒体帖子中写道。“让我们行动起来吧。”

Ms. Harris and her team are likely to move swiftly to try to seize that mantle even as uncertainty swirled about whether other Democrats would seek to challenge her for the nomination at the party’s convention in Chicago next month.
哈里斯和她的团队很可能会迅速采取行动，设法抓牢拜登的衣钵，尽管目前还不确定其他民主党人是否会在下个月于芝加哥举行的大会上寻求挑战她的提名。

In a statement, Ms. Harris thanked Mr. Biden for the endorsement, saying that his “legacy of accomplishment is unmatched in modern American history.” She vowed to “earn and win this nomination” and to keep Mr. Trump from serving another four years in the White House.
哈里斯在一份声明中感谢了拜登的支持，称拜登的“成就在美国现代史上无与伦比”。她誓言要“争取和赢得这一提名”，不让特朗普在白宫再任职四年。

“We have 107 days until Election Day,” Ms. Harris wrote. “Together, we will fight. And together, we will win.”
“距离选举日还有107天，”哈里斯写道。“我们团结一致，共同奋斗。我们团结一致，走向胜利。”

Should she become the nominee, she would have only a few months to boost her own weak approval ratings, make a case for a Harris presidency and rally voters against Mr. Trump, whom Democrats have branded as an existential threat to democracy and a supporter of dangerous positions on guns, abortion, immigration, taxes, education and trade.
如果成为提名人，她将只有几个月的时间来提高自己低迷的支持率，陈述选择她的理由，并团结选民反对特朗普，民主党人将后者称为对民主的生存威胁，在枪支、堕胎、移民、税收、教育和贸易等问题上支持一种危险的立场。

If Ms. Harris becomes the nominee, she would immediately flip the generational argument on Mr. Trump, who has spent years deriding Mr. Biden as a doddering old man. Ms. Harris, at 59, is 19 years younger than Mr. Trump, who is 78.
如果哈里斯成为提名人，她将立即把年龄的问题转向多年来一直嘲笑拜登老态龙钟的特朗普。哈里斯现年59岁，比78岁的特朗普年轻19岁。

Ms. Harris would have little choice but to run on the Biden-Harris administration’s record over the past four years, which Mr. Trump has attacked relentlessly. As the party’s nominee, she would be able to take some credit for the president’s legislative successes, like new laws boosting infrastructure spending, but would also be vulnerable to attack for his failures, like the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, a surge in inflation and the difficulty of controlling the stream of migrants across the Southern border.
哈里斯别无选择，只能以拜登-哈里斯政府过去四年的政绩为基础参选，而特朗普对这一政绩进行了无情的抨击。作为该党的提名人，她可以因总统在立法上的成就而揽下一些功劳，比如增加基础设施开支的新法律，但也很容易因总统的失败之处而受到攻击，比如笨拙的阿富汗撤军、激增的通货膨胀，以及难以控制跨越南部边境的移民潮等问题。

After a first two years in office in which Ms. Harris was often derided as out of her depth, many Democrats have given her higher marks more recently. The Supreme Court decision overturning the right to abortion enshrined in Roe v. Wade led her to step out as a prominent advocate for abortion rights and women’s rights more generally. She was seen as more effective at defending Mr. Biden after his disastrous debate performance than Mr. Biden was himself.
哈里斯在上任的头两年经常被讥讽为不自量力，但最近许多民主党人给了她更高的评价。最高法院推翻“罗诉韦德”案确立的堕胎权，使她成为堕胎权和更广泛的妇女权利的主要倡导者。在拜登灾难性的辩论表现之后，她被认为比拜登本人更能有效地为其辩护。

As the Democratic nominee, she might be able to appeal more successfully than Mr. Biden would to key constituencies in the Democratic Party: people of color, young voters and progressives, all of whom have expressed dissatisfaction with Mr. Biden for more than a year.
作为民主党的提名人，她可能会比拜登更成功地吸引民主党的主要选民：有色人种、年轻选民和进步派人士，这些人一年多来都表达了对拜登的不满。

In a post on social media, Ron Klain, Mr. Biden’s former chief of staff, wrote: “Now that the donors and electeds have pushed out the only candidate who has ever beaten Trump, it’s time to end the political fantasy games and unite behind the only veteran of a national campaign — our outstanding @vp, @KamalaHarris!! Let’s get real and win in November!”
拜登的前幕僚长罗恩·克莱恩在社交媒体上发文写道：“现在，捐赠者和当选者已经把唯一击败过特朗普的候选人排挤出局，是时候结束政治幻想游戏，团结在唯一有全国竞选经验的候选人——我们杰出的@副总统 @卡马拉·哈里斯——的身边了！让我们面对现实，赢得11月的胜利！”

The arc of Ms. Harris’s political career took her from local prosecutor to the top law enforcement official in California to United States senator, breaking racial and gender barriers along the way with a melting pot story that encompassed her Jamaican-born father, a mother born in India and her marriage to a white, Jewish man.
哈里斯的政治生涯经历了从地方检察官到加利福尼亚州最高执法官员再到联邦参议员的蜕变，一路上她打破了种族和性别障碍，她的故事也关于种族融合：她的父亲是牙买加人，母亲出生于印度，她与一名犹太白人结婚。

She would be the first Black woman and the first South Asian woman to be nominated for the presidency by either the Democrats or the Republicans.
如果她得到提名，将是两党第一次有黑人女性和南亚女性被推举为总统候选人。

In California and Congress, she was a rising star whose ambition led her to seek the presidency in the 2020 race, joining a crowded field of contenders seeking the chance to oust Mr. Trump from office.
在加利福尼亚州和国会，她曾作为一颗冉冉升起的新星，在雄心壮志的推动下于2020年竞选总统，加入众多竞争者的行列，寻求将特朗普赶下台。

She did not do well. After struggling to translate her personal story and governing agenda into support on the campaign trail, she dropped out of the race in December of 2019, weeks before the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.
她的表现并不理想。在苦于难以将她的个人经历和施政纲领转化为对其竞选活动的支持之后，她于2019年12月，即艾奥瓦州党团会议和新罕布什尔州初选几周前退出了竞选。

In August of the next year, Mr. Biden rescued her political career, tapping Ms. Harris to be his vice-presidential nominee. He called her a “fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants.” Overnight, she became a potential heir in a Democratic Party already looking to the future.
第二年8月，拜登挽救了她的政治生涯，提名她为副总统候选人。他称哈里斯是“为小人物而战的无畏斗士，也是美国最优秀的公务员之一”。一夜之间，她成为已在放眼未来的民主党的可能继承者。

In a speech after she and Mr. Biden claimed their victory, Ms. Harris said that “while I may be the first woman in this office, I will not be the last. Because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities.”
哈里斯在她和拜登宣布获胜后发表的讲话中说：“虽然我可能是第一个担任这一职务的女性，但我不会是最后一个。因为今晚正在观看的每一个小女孩都会看到，这是一个充满可能性的国家。”

But as vice president, those lofty possibilities seemed to fade quickly. She struggled with the limits imposed on any occupant of the vice presidency. And she bristled at the lack of clear direction or support from Mr. Biden and his team at the White House.
但作为副总统，这些崇高的可能性似乎很快就消失了。所有副总统都要面对的那些限制令她不知所措。拜登和他的白宫团队没有给予她明确的方向或支持，这也让她感到不快。

Early mistakes cost her dearly. After being asked by Mr. Biden to address the root causes of immigration — a directive that was widely interpreted as making Ms. Harris the country’s de facto border czar — she stumbled in the face of large surges of families at the border. Under pressure from Republicans to visit the area, she told NBC’s Lester Holt that she didn’t understand why that would be important.
早期的失误让她付出了沉重的代价。拜登要求哈里斯从根本上解决移民问题——这一指示被广泛解读为哈里斯成为美国事实上的边境沙皇——面对边境涌入的大批家庭，她的表现拙劣。当共和党人施压要求她前往该地区时，她对NBC的莱斯特·霍尔特说，她不明白为什么非要去。

“I haven’t been to Europe,” Ms. Harris said. “And I mean, I don’t understand the point you’re making.”
“我也没去过欧洲，”哈里斯说。“我是说，我不明白你的意思。”

The vice president’s approval numbers sank and have never really recovered. A recent polling average on the website FiveThirtyEight.com shows her approval rating at just over 38 percent. More than half of the people surveyed disapprove of the job she has done.
副总统的支持率一落千丈，从此一蹶不振。FiveThirtyEight.com网站最近的一项民调均值分析显示，她的支持率略高于38%。超过半数的受访者不认可她的工作表现。

Allies of Ms. Harris say that could now change quickly as she seeks to assume the top spot on the ticket and voters give her a second look, with much more at stake.
哈里斯的盟友们说，这种情况现在可能会迅速改变，随着她力争成为候选人中的佼佼者，关系到更多人的利益，选民们会重新评估她。

But the memory of her rapidly faltering 2020 campaign remains on the minds of many activists and others in the party, who are already worried about whether Ms. Harris has the popularity and charisma to carry Democrats across the finish line in the race against Mr. Trump and the effort to win control of Congress.
但是，许多活动人士和党内其他人士仍然对她在2020年竞选中迅速陷入困境记忆犹新，他们已经开始担心哈里斯是否拥有足够的人气和魅力，能够带领民主党人在与特朗普的竞争以及赢得国会控制权的努力中越过终点线。

To do that, her team will likely seek to take over the campaign apparatus built over the last year to elect Mr. Biden again. But she will also need to quickly prove that she can stand on her own against Mr. Trump, whose campaign has already begun ramping up their attacks on her.
为此，她的团队可能会寻求接管去年为拜登再次当选而建立的竞选机器。但她也需要尽快证明自己能够独立对抗特朗普，后者的竞选团队已经开始加强对她的攻击。

And before she can be the nominee, she will have to navigate the tricky politics of the Democratic Party and arcane — but now suddenly important — rules that dictate how the party ratifies its nominee.
在成为提名人之前，她还必须设法应对民主党棘手的党内政治，以及有关民主党如何批准提名人的晦涩规则——这些规则如今突然变得重要起来。
(本新闻网址：https://www.geilien.cn/news/2024/nyharris.html)

Michael D. Shear是《纽约时报》白宫记者，报道拜登总统及拜登政府新闻。他报道美国政治已超过30年。点击查看更多关于他的信息。

翻译：Ziyu Qing