對總統唐納德·特朗普的強烈抗議壯大了民主黨的積極分子隊伍，但他們剛剛迸發的這股激情面對的是嚴峻的現實——共和黨仍處于有利位置，從而在2018年的中期選舉中繼續把權力握在手里。

雖然共和黨在參議院占據微弱多數，但本次中期選舉涉及的席位大多由民主黨把持。這就意味著他們必須狙擊共和黨，特別是在特朗普獲勝的10個州。

在眾議院，為保持共和黨政治主導地位而劃定的選區將為共和黨提供支持。在某些情況下，劃分時專門把大批民主黨支持者納入僅僅幾個選區中，從而讓更多的席位向共和黨傾斜。

普林斯頓大學神經學家、統計學家山姆·王說：“民主黨人目前極為氣憤。”他開發出了一款統計模型，用于分析兩黨為自己劃定有利選區的行為。

然而，王指出，民主黨要想重新在國會掌權，“就得出現極端事件。而問題在于，出現了這樣的跡象了嗎？”

為本次中期選舉設立的民主黨眾議院選舉委員會瞄準了共和黨在24個州的59個眾議員席位，其中涉及民主黨總統候選人希拉里·克林頓擊敗特朗普的23個選區以及近年來共和黨從民主黨手中奪走的其他一些選區。

民主黨已經開始在其中的20個選區安排全職有償組織者。該委員會表示，民主黨此前從未在這樣的初期階段采取過此類行動。

今年1月，該委員會爭取到的新支持者陡然增加了67.5萬人，其中許多人都參加了美國各地反對特朗普政策的抗議活動。這股能量能否保持到2018年仍有待觀察。

共和黨眾議院選舉委員會發言人杰西·亨特把民主黨的樂觀情緒稱為“白日夢”。亨特指出，民主黨對2016年的國會選舉也曾有很高的期望，但在他們瞄準的15名首次當選的共和黨眾議員中，落敗的只有4人。

歷史看來站在民主黨一邊。南北戰爭以來，共和黨在中期選舉初選中全面落敗，只獲勝過兩次——一次是在1934年，當時總統富蘭克林·羅斯福正在帶領美國熬過大蕭條；另一次是在2002年，時任總統的喬治·W·布什正帶著美國對2001年的恐怖分子活動進行反擊。

在貝拉克·奧巴馬的首個總統任期內，共和黨在2010年的中期選舉中奪回了60多個眾議院席位，重新贏得了眾議院控制權。它在當年選舉中贏得的州議會和州長位置也超過了民主黨。

隨后，共和黨利用州議會的力量鞏固了自己在華盛頓的控制力，途徑是在2010年的人口普查后重新劃分了議員選區。

2012年，在新選區劃定后的首次選舉中，盡管民主黨候選人的全國得票總數比共和黨候選人多140萬票，共和黨仍在眾議院取得了33個席位的多數優勢。

雖然此后法院的裁決使一些選區重新得到了劃分，但在2018年的中期選舉中，許多選區都將保持原狀。

王估算，要獲得在眾議院占據多數的足夠席位，民主黨議員在本次選舉中的得票率需要比共和黨方面高7-12個百分點。他說，民主黨上一次取得這樣的領先優勢是在2008年。

但隨后情況出現了變化。

楊百翰大學政治學助理教授邁克爾·巴伯說：“目前就是有更多的選區自然傾向于共和黨，一部分原因是民主黨的布局，另一部分原因則是共和黨人在劃分選區時考慮到了幫自己的黨派拿下更多議席。”巴伯研究過特意劃定選區和當政者對國會選舉的影響。

前總監察長埃里克·霍爾德最近成為新設立的民主黨全國重新分區委員會主席。該委員會的目標是通過贏得今后幾年的關鍵州議會選舉和訴訟，讓民主黨在2021年重新劃分選區時處于更有利的位置。

在愛荷華州辦公的民主黨顧問吉米·科特邁耶說：“要做的工作還有很多。重新劃分選區是個實實在在的問題，但坦白地說，更大的問題在于民主黨的支持者過于集中在太過狹小的地區”，也就是那些大城市，而不是許許多多的美國中小城市。

對一部分近來精神抖擻的民主黨積極分子來說，現實中的選民分布情況給他們的樂觀情緒潑了冷水。

大選以來，費城醫生瑞婭·鮑威爾一直和其他女性一起在華盛頓和費城游行，抗議特朗普推翻奧巴馬醫改法案的企圖，她們還在機場示威，反對特朗普頒布的移民限令。她甚至報名參加了民主黨候選人培訓項目。

但鮑威爾也知道，取勝或許很艱難，至少是在短期之內。

她說：“我擔心的是，特意的劃分對許多選區的影響也許會讓我們很難（在2018年的選舉中）明顯改變局勢。”

其他新涌現的積極分子則相信，就算選區劃分不利，也有可能獲勝。

瑪麗·克勞斯是一名來自于芝加哥郊區的小企業主，她最近參加了在華盛頓的游行，目前正在自己的社區組織女性成員。她說：“我覺得總會有障礙……（但）我們不會只是坐在這里并搖著頭說，‘嗯，好吧，我想只能這樣了。’”

諷刺的是，民主黨贏得大量議席的可能性或許取決于特朗普能否順利施政。共和黨在2010年獲得的那波勝利就是來自于奧巴馬頒布的政策在選民中引發的抗議，其中最主要的就是被迅速冠以“奧巴馬醫改”名號的醫療保險法案。

政治學家、密歇根州立大學公共政策和社會調查研究所主任馬特·格羅斯曼說：“政客有時認為他們許諾后支持者會希望他們遵守這些承諾，但歷史所展現的模式恰好相反，那就是民意走勢和政策變化相悖。”

“所以，唐納德·特朗普越成功，或者說，共和黨越成功地讓政策右傾，反作用力就可能越大。”（財富中文網）

譯者：Charlie

Passionate protests against Donald Trump's presidency have swelled the ranks of Democratic activists, but their new enthusiasm faces a hard reality: Republicans remain well-positioned to retain their grip on power in the 2018 elections.

While Republicans hold only a slim majority in the U.S. Senate, Democrats occupy most of the seats up for election in two years. That means they must play defense against Republicans, especially in 10 states that Trump won.

In the U.S. House, Republicans will be aided by favorable district boundaries that were drawn to maintain GOP political dominance. In some cases, the congressional districts were gerrymandered to pack high numbers of Democratic voters into just a few districts as a way to create a greater number of Republican-leaning seats.

"Democrats are extremely fired up right now," said Sam Wang, a Princeton University neuroscientist and statistician who has developed a statistical model for analyzing partisan gerrymandering.

But for Democrats to win back Congress, Wang said it "would take an extreme event. The question is, are we seeing something that's headed towards that?"

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is targeting 59 Republican-held House seats in 24 states as it builds toward the next election. Those include 23 districts where Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton defeated Trump and various others that Republicans took away from Democrats in recent years.

It also is beginning to place full-time paid organizers in 20 of those districts, something the committee says it has never done at this early stage.

The Democratic committee is touting a surge of 675,000 new supporters in January, many of whom joined the cause amid nationwide protests against Trump's policies. Whether that energy can be sustained through 2018 remains to be seen.

National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Jesse Hunt calls the Democratic optimism a "pipe dream." Hunt notes that Democrats also held high hopes for 2016, but unseated just four of the 15 freshmen GOP representatives they targeted.

Democrats would appear to have history on their side. The president's party has lost ground in Congress in all but two of the initial midterm elections since the Civil War. The exceptions are 1934, when President Franklin Roosevelt was guiding the country through the Great Depression, and 2002, when President George W. Bush was leading the response to the 2001 terrorist attacks.

In the 2010 election during the middle of President Barack Obama's first term, Republicans flipped more than five dozen seats to take control of the U.S. House away from Democrats. Republicans also won control of a majority of state legislative chambers and governors' offices that year.

They then used that statehouse power to help cement their control in Washington by redrawing congressional districts following the 2010 Census.

In 2012, the first election under those new maps, Republicans won a 33-seat majority in the U.S. House even though Democratic candidates across the country received 1.4 million more votes than their Republican opponents.

Although court rulings have since forced the redrawing of some districts, many of those boundaries remain in place for the 2018 elections.

Wang estimates Democratic congressional candidates would need to win the 2018 nationwide vote by 7 to 12 percentage points to capture enough seats to win control of the House. The last time Democrats enjoyed such a spread was 2008, he said.

But circumstances have changed since then.

"There are just more districts at the moment that have a natural tilt toward Republicans, partly because of Democratic geography and partly because of Republicans drawing districts with an eye toward helping pick up more seats for their party," said Michael Barber, an assistant political science professor at Brigham Young University who has studied the effects of gerrymandering and incumbency on congressional elections.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder recently signed on as chairman of the new National Democratic Redistricting Committee, which is attempting to better position Democrats for the 2021 redistricting by winning key statehouse races and court cases in the coming years.

"There's a lot of work to be done," said Iowa-based Democratic consultant Jim Kottmeyer. "Redistricting is a real problem, but the bigger problem is frankly that Democratic votes are just way too concentrated in too small of geographic areas" — big cities, instead of America's many small and mid-size towns.

The realities of the electoral map have tempered the optimism of some newly invigorated Democratic activists.

Since Election Day, Philadelphia physician Rhea Powell has marched with other women in Washington, protested in her home town against the potential repeal of Obama's health care law and joined in airport demonstrations against Trump's immigration restrictions. She has even enrolled in a program that trains potential Democratic candidates.

But she also understands that victories may be difficult, at least in the near term.

"I am worried that because of the impact that gerrymandering has had on many of the districts that it may be hard to make big changes" in the 2018 elections, Powell said.

Other new activists believe it's possible to win even with unfavorable districts.

"I think there'll always be barriers ... (but) we're not just going to sit back and shake our head and say, 'OK, well, I guess that's it.'" said Mary Clauss, a small business owner from suburban Chicago who recently marched in Washington and now is organizing other women in her community.

Ironically, Democratic chances for huge congressional gains may depend on Trump's success at enacting his agenda. The Republican wave in 2010 was fueled by voter backlash against Obama's policies, headlined by the health care law that quickly became known as "Obamacare."

"Politicians sometimes think that they made promises and their voters want them to keep them, but the historical pattern is the opposite — that public opinion moves against the direction of policy change," said political scientist Matt Grossmann, director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University.

"So the more Donald Trump is successful — and the Republican Party is successful — in moving policy to the right, the bigger the backlash is likely to be."