唐纳德·特朗普总统不断累积的腐败丑闻正开始带来切实的政治后果——据一位知名政治分析人士称，这些丑闻如今正使他失去大量选票。

"Corruption is moving the needle whenever voters are focused on the explosion of greed and self-enrichment by Trump and his family—easily the worst in presidential history,"（每当选民聚焦于特朗普及其家族贪婪和自肥的爆发式增长时，腐败就会真正影响选情——这堪称美国总统历史上最严重的一次），政治学家、政治分析人士、弗吉尼亚大学政治中心主任拉里·萨巴托周日在X上发文表示。

在9月与AlterNet就2026年中期选举——即将决定国会控制权的角逐——进行的对话中，编辑萨巴托的Crystal Ball选举通讯的民调专家凯尔·孔迪克阐述了特朗普及其共和党为何以结构性劣势进入这场选战。

"It's primarily the president's weak approval rating combined with the usual difficulty that the presidential party has in a midterm,"（"主要原因是总统支持率低迷，再加上执政党在中期选举中通常面临的困难，"）孔迪克解释道。"I also think there may be even more for voters to react to in 2026 compared to even 2018, because Trump has acted as more of an imperial president and there is more dissatisfaction both with the economy as well as the president's foreign policy choices."（"我还认为，与2018年相比，2026年选民要作出反应的问题可能更多，因为特朗普的行事方式更像一位'帝王总统'，而且公众对经济以及总统外交政策选择的不满情绪也更强烈。"）

这种结构性劣势有着政治历史依据：自二战以来，执政党几乎在每次中期选举中都会失去众议院席位，1998年和2002年是罕见的例外。孔迪克援引的2018年对比，是对特朗普第一任期的首次中期选举检验，结果民主党翻转了众议院。

不满情绪甚至蔓延到特朗普的一些昔日支持者。右翼播客主持人乔·罗根——其节目是美国收听人数最多的播客之一，他也是特朗普的长期支持者——在腐败问题上与总统决裂，批评特朗普自第二任期开始以来获利超过20亿美元，其中很大一部分来自加密货币。

奥巴马政府前国家安全顾问本·罗兹周日对MS NOW的尼科尔·华莱士表示，这种自肥行为的巨大规模和显眼程度，使其比特朗普第一任期那些更为隐晦的争议更容易让选民理解。

"I think part what's going on here, Nicole, is, number one, the scale and obvious nature of this corruption is much simpler of a story to tell than some of the more bank-shot corruption of the first term,"（"我认为，妮科尔，这里的一部分原因在于，第一，这种腐败的规模和明显程度，比第一任期那些更迂回的腐败更容易讲述，"）罗兹说。"You know, Saudis paying a lot of money to stay in Trump hotel rooms or something like that. The scale [this time] is billions of dollars, and it's pretty clear when you juice, like, a meme coin, and then it collapses in value, and you walk away with a lot of money and all the people that you convinced to invest in it walk away losing a lot of money. Well, that's an easy story to tell. So that's the first thing: the scale of and how clear it is."（"你知道，比如沙特人为入住特朗普酒店房间支付巨额费用之类的。这一次的规模是数十亿美元，而且情况非常清楚：你先拉高某个迷因币，然后币值崩盘，你带着巨额资金离场，而所有被你说服投资的人则损失惨重。这很容易讲清楚。所以第一点就是：它的规模有多大、多么一目了然。"）

布鲁金斯学会和彼得森研究所非驻会高级研究员、密歇根大学经济学与公共政策教授贾斯汀·沃尔弗斯博士9月也在接受AlterNet采访时解释了特朗普的腐败如何对普通美国人造成实际的经济损害。

"The problem with the Trump family corruption — and not all of it's the legal definition of corruption, by the way; some of it meets the standard English-language definition, if not a legal definition — is what you do is you change the nexus of competition,"（"特朗普家族腐败的问题在于——顺便说一句，并非所有行为都符合法律意义上的腐败定义；有些即使不符合法律定义，也符合标准英语语境中的腐败定义——它改变的是竞争的核心纽带，"）沃尔弗斯告诉AlterNet。"If the best way for me to get ahead is to go to the White House bearing gifts, and then they pass a rule and they ban you from competing against me, then that means the basic dynamics of competition and markets delivering good outcomes for regular folks just gets broken."（"如果我要出人头地的最佳方式就是带着礼物前往白宫，然后他们通过一项规则、禁止你与我竞争，那就意味着竞争的基本动力以及市场为普通人带来良好结果这一机制被破坏了。"）

"That in turn means that if I'm the CEO of a company, I spend less time trying to create products at lower prices, trying to outcompete, or less time creating new or better products,"（"这进而意味着，如果我是一家公司的CEO，我会花更少的时间去努力以更低的价格打造产品、努力在竞争中胜出，或者去开发新的、更好的产品，"）他补充道。"And I spend more time and energy at Mar-a-Lago trying to win over the favor of the president. That means bad products will win. That means expensive products will win. And the way I tell the story, compare Tim Cook's job at Apple to Steve Jobs' job at Apple."（"而我会把更多时间和精力花在海湖庄园，努力博取总统的青睐。这意味着劣质产品会胜出。这意味着昂贵的产品会胜出。按照我的讲法，把蒂姆·库克在苹果的职责与史蒂夫·乔布斯在苹果的职责对比一下就明白了。"）