The first signs came in the suburbs.

最初的迹象出现在郊区。

It was not yet 9 p.m. Voters in key battleground states were still at the polls. There was even a marching band regaling voters at a polling site in Bethlehem, Pa., that was packed with supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris.

还不到晚上9点。关键战场州的选民仍在投票。宾夕法尼亚州伯利恒的一个投票站挤满了副总统贺锦丽的支持者，甚至还有一支仪乐队为选民们演奏。

But in Loudon County, Va., the very sort of well-heeled and highly educated suburb that Ms. Harris hoped would lift her to victory over former President Donald J. Trump, the early returns contained a flashing warning for Democrats: She just wasn’t winning by enough.

但在弗吉尼亚州的伦敦县——贺锦丽希望这个富裕、受教育程度较高的郊区能够帮助她战胜前总统特朗普——早期的选举结果向民主党人发出了警告：她的优势还不够大。

For weeks, Americans had been told that the presidential race was a tossup, that Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris were tied in all the battleground states — and that it might take days for clarity to emerge and a winner to be declared. But in the hours after the polls closed and the counting began, the momentum began to shift steadily in Mr. Trump’s direction, leaving the country to either reckon with or celebrate the fact that the nation might be about to do this again.

几周以来，美国人一直被告知，此次总统竞选胜负难料，特朗普和贺锦丽在所有的战场州都势均力敌——可能需要几天时间才能局势明朗，分出胜负。但在投票结束、计票开始后的几个小时里，势头开始稳步向特朗普获胜的方向转变，整个国家的人要么思忖、要么庆祝这样一个事实：美国可能会走上老路。

Mr. Trump had lost his bid for re-election four years ago to Joseph R. Biden Jr., having been rejected by voters in the throes of a pandemic. Leaders in his own party turned on him — briefly — after his efforts to overturn that result culminated in an attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

四年前，特朗普在竞选连任时输给了拜登，当时正处在疫情的煎熬下，选民们拒绝了他。他试图推翻这一选举结果，最终导致2021年1月6日对国会大厦的袭击，此后，他所在政党的领导人短暂地背弃了他。

As the results trickled in on Tuesday, though, even Mr. Trump’s allies seemed shocked by the signs of his strength — and the improbable political comeback it appeared to foretell.

然而，随着周二选举结果逐步揭晓，就连特朗普的盟友似乎也对他的强势表现感到震惊——这似乎预示着他将在政治上不可思议地卷土重来。

Shortly before 10:30 p.m., the Fox News host Bret Baier was ready to proclaim Mr. Trump “probably the biggest political phoenix from the ashes that we have ever seen in the history of politics.”

快到晚上10点半的时候，福克斯新闻主持人布雷特·拜尔准备宣称特朗普“可能是政治史上最大的凤凰涅槃”。

It was much too soon to declare that Mr. Trump’s victory was certain. It was not until 11:20 p.m. that The Associated Press projected he had won his first battleground state, North Carolina. At 12:48 a.m., The New York Times called Georgia for Mr. Trump, too. The so-called Blue Wall states seemed like Ms. Harris’s last chance — but by 1 a.m., Mr. Trump had a lead in every one.

现在宣布特朗普的胜利已成定局还为时过早。（本文英文版发表于特朗普赢下宾夕法尼亚州之前。——编注）直到晚上11点20分，美联社才测算他已经赢得了第一个战场州——北卡罗来纳州。12点48分，《纽约时报》也称佐治亚州支持特朗普。所谓的蓝墙州似乎是哈里斯的最后机会——但到凌晨1点，特朗普在每个州都取得了领先。

For Republicans, there was more good news. They appeared to clinch the Senate, picking up an open seat in West Virginia and knocking off at least one red-state Democrat, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio.

对共和党人来说，还有更多的好消息。他们似乎赢得了参议院，拿下了西弗吉尼亚州的一个空缺席位，并击败了至少一名红州民主党人——俄亥俄州参议员谢罗德·布朗。

As the night went on, a party that had placed a risky bet on Mr. Trump, putting all of its chips on a candidate who had lost the 2020 election, and who has seemed only to grow more politically extreme with time, could see the payoff coming.

共和党在特朗普身上下了重注、把所有筹码都押在这位输掉了2020年大选，而且未来似乎在政治上只会更加极端的候选人身上，随着夜晚的推进，共和党可能会看到，回报正在到来。

Mr. Trump, noted the Fox News host Jesse Watters, “would have a mandate.”

福克斯新闻主持人杰西·沃特斯指出，特朗普“将获得授权”。

In Florida, Mr. Trump’s election night party at the Palm Beach convention center was already taking on the feeling of one of his campaign rallies, as supporters in sequins and MAGA hats roared in delight over favorable returns and broke into chants of “Fight, fight, fight!”

在佛罗里达州，特朗普在棕榈滩会议中心举行的选举之夜派对已经有了他的竞选集会的感觉，身穿亮片衣服、头戴MAGA帽子的支持者为有利的选情欢呼雀跃，高呼“战斗，战斗，战斗”。

And at Howard University in Washington, D.C., Ms. Harris’s historically Black alma mater where thousands of her supporters had flocked for her own event, a crowd that started the night cheering and dancing fell eerily silent as North Carolina was called for Mr. Trump.

传统黑人大学华盛顿特区霍华德大学是贺锦丽的母校，她的数千名支持者聚集在那里参加她的观选活动。晚上一开始，人群欢呼雀跃，当特朗普在北卡罗来纳州获胜的消息传来，人群变得异常安静。

“You won’t hear from the vice president tonight,” one of her campaign co-chairs, Cedric Richmond, told the thinning crowd at about 12:45 a.m., in a somber address that lasted less than a minute and a half. “But you will hear from her tomorrow.”

“今晚你们不会听到副总统的讲话，”她的竞选团队联合主席塞德里克·里士满在大约凌晨12:45分的时候对逐渐稀少的人群说，这番气氛沉重的讲话持续了不到一分半钟。“但是你们明天会听到她的发言。”

It was only a few days ago that Mr. Trump himself had seemed like the somber one. His campaign was rebuked last week by members of his own party for a joke describing Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” told by a comedian during a rally he held at Madison Square Garden. During his final weekend of campaigning, his voice sounded hoarse and listless, and he spent much of his time on the stump concocting unfounded theories that would explain away a loss, including voter fraud or machines he claimed might change people’s votes.

就在几天前，似乎特朗普才是那个显得阴郁的人。上周，在麦迪逊广场花园举行的一次他的集会上，一名脱口秀演员讲了一个笑话说波多黎各是“漂浮的垃圾岛”，他的竞选团队因此受到党内成员的指责。在他竞选活动的最后一个周末，他的声音听起来沙哑而又无精打采，他花了很多时间在巡回演讲上编造一些毫无根据的理论来解释自己可能失败的原因，包括选民欺诈，或者他声称可能改变人们选票的机器。

Mr. Trump’s team urged his supporters to drum up more votes well into the evening, and they seemed to know their audience.

特朗普的团队一直到晚上都在敦促他的支持者去拉票，他们似乎很了解自己的受众。

周二，佛罗里达州西棕榈滩，特朗普的支持者。

“If you know any men who haven’t voted, get them to the polls,” Stephen Miller, Mr. Trump’s former adviser, posted on X at 5:58 p.m.

“如果你认识任何没有投票的人，让他们去投票，”特朗普的前顾问斯蒂芬·米勒于下午5点58分在X上发帖说。

Six minutes later, he posted once more: “Get every man you know to the polls.”

六分钟后，他再次发帖：“让你认识的每个人都去投票。”

But, as the night wore on, Democrats were confronting the possibility that a former president they had already beaten — and who went on to be criminally indicted four times and convicted once — could very well be coming back. For months, they had warned he was a threat to democracy who would govern like a “fascist.” They had framed the race, against a man who appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, as a fundamental battle for women’s freedoms.

但是，随着夜色渐深，民主党人面临着这样一种可能性：他们已经击败的前总统——他后来四次被刑事起诉，一次被定罪——很可能会卷土重来。几个月来，他们一直警告，他是民主的威胁，会像“法西斯”一样统治。他曾任命了三名推翻罗伊诉韦德案的最高法院大法官，民主党人把这场竞选说成是争取女性自由的根本性斗争。

And it did not seem that it had worked.

但这似乎并没有奏效。

In Phoenix, Emilio Avila Solis, 24, a Democrat, said a night of watching election returns at a bar had turned into a night of people “pulling their hair out.” In Madison, Wis., Jasmine Shoates, 19, wondered about the fact that a “criminal and an extremist” was on the verge of a second term.

在凤凰城，24岁的民主党人埃米利奥·阿维拉·索利斯说，在酒吧里观看选举结果的夜晚变成了人们“懊丧”的夜晚。在威斯康辛州的麦迪逊市。19岁的贾思敏·肖茨对一个“罪犯和极端分子”即将连任的事实感到疑惑。

And in Omaha, Alesia Montgomery, 68, and Karen Wright Frazier, 65, were stress-snacking on chips and jerky at a party for the Nebraska Democrats and wondered where it all had gone wrong.

在奥马哈内布拉斯加州民主党人的派对上，68岁的阿莱西亚·蒙哥马利和65岁的凯伦·赖特·弗雷泽边吃薯片和牛肉干缓解压力，一边思考到底哪里出了问题。

“There are a lot of men who just can’t see a woman in a leadership role,” Ms. Frazier said.

“有很多男人就是看不得女性担任领导角色，”弗雷泽说。

For some Democrats, bigger fears began to creep in. Another Democrat in Omaha began to cry as she wondered what an “unfettered” Mr. Trump would do in a second term.

对一些民主党人来说，更大的担忧开始悄然袭来。奥马哈的另一位民主党人开始哭泣，因为她不知道，“不受约束”的特朗普在第二个任期会做什么。

“Great empires rise and fall,” said the woman, who gave her name — and then asked that it not be used, for fear that she could be targeted for speaking out against the man who could be the next president. “If he wins again, I think America’s best days are behind us.”

“伟大的帝国总有兴衰，”这位女士说，她说出了自己的名字，然后又要求不要用这个名字，因为担心自己会因为公开反对可能成为下一任总统的人而成为攻击目标。“如果他再次获胜，我认为美国最好的日子已经过去了。”

As of 2:30 a.m., the tallying was still underway. The race had yet to be called by The Associated Press. But Mr. Trump appeared onstage in Palm Beach to declare victory anyway.

截至凌晨两点，点票仍在进行中。美联社尚未宣布竞选结果。但特朗普已经出现在棕榈滩的舞台上，宣布胜选。

“Look what happened,” Mr. Trump said. “Is this crazy?”

“看看发生了什么，”特朗普说，“这是不是太疯狂了？”