Her campaign pitch was moving, even high-minded. If Vice President Kamala Harris were elected to the White House, she would safeguard the ideals of a good nation. Voters had a choice, she said: democracy, constitutional rights and bedrock freedoms — or Donald J. Trump’s “chaos and division.”

她的竞选主张令人感动，甚至可以说高风亮节。如果贺锦丽副总统当选并入主白宫，她将捍卫一个美好国家的理想。她说，选民有一个选择：是民主、宪法权利和基本自由，还是唐纳德·J·特朗普的“混乱和分裂”。

On Tuesday, the nation replied. The answer from more than half of voters seemed to dismiss warnings that Mr. Trump was a threat to principles on which the country had been founded. Abstract truths mattered less, voters said, than tangible issues, like the ability to pay rent or concerns over border crossings. In a time of widespread distrust in institutions, Ms. Harris’s call to protect the nation’s norms rang hollow for many Americans.

周二，美国人民给出了回答。对于特朗普将对建国原则构成威胁这一警告，超过半数选民似乎不以为然。选民们说，抽象的真理不如实实在在的问题重要，比如支付房租的能力或对边境口岸的担忧。在一个普遍不信任体制的时代，贺锦丽保护国家规范的呼吁对许多美国人来说是空洞的。

In more than 200 interviews across the country in the four days preceding the election, voters, especially in swing states, spoke not of endangered democracy or institutions but of diminished prospects. Their words echoed repeated pre-election polling that showed that majorities of Americans believed the nation was headed in the wrong direction, even as the pandemic had ebbed, the rate of inflation was falling and crime and unemployment rates had remained historically low.

大选前四天，在全国各地进行的200多次访谈中，选民，尤其是摇摆州的选民，谈论的不是濒危的民主或制度，而是暗淡的前景。他们的话与大选前反复进行的民意调查相呼应，这些调查显示，大多数美国人认为国家正朝着错误的方向前进，尽管大流行已经消退，通货膨胀率正在下降，犯罪率和失业率也保持在历史低位。

“Electric, water, groceries, my dues for where I live,” said Mary Chastain, 74, a retiree on a fixed income who voted for Mr. Trump on Tuesday in Waleska, Ga., a city of roughly 1,000 people in a rural stretch north of Atlanta. “Everything has gone up.”

74岁的玛丽·查斯坦说：“电费、水费、杂货费，还有我住的地方的费用。”她是一名有固定收入的退休人员，本周二在佐治亚州的威尔斯卡——位于亚特兰大以北乡村地区的一个约有1000人的城市——投票给了特朗普。“什么都变贵了。”

玛丽·查斯坦感叹物价上涨，她在周二投票给了特朗普。

“Something has to change,” said Idelle Halona, 51, of Phoenix, standing in line to vote for Mr. Trump on Tuesday. In the past two years, she said, her rent had nearly doubled and mounting mortgage rates had priced her out of homeownership. “I have wealthy friends, and I have friends who are living paycheck to paycheck. Everybody’s hurting. Everybody.”

51岁的菲尼克斯人伊黛尔·哈罗娜周二排队为特朗普投票时说：“必须有所改变。”她说，在过去的两年里，她的房租几乎翻了一番，不断攀升的房贷利率让她无法拥有自己的住房。“我有富裕的朋友，也有靠薪水生活的朋友。每个人都很艰难。每个人。”

“We never had it as good as when he was president,” said Harry Rakestraw, 84, a retired factory worker, who cast his ballot for Mr. Trump in Antrim County, Mich. “I’m not better off today than I was then.”

密歇根州安特里姆县84岁的退休工厂工人哈里·拉克斯特劳将选票投给了特朗普。“我现在的生活并不比过去好。”

Mr. Trump’s campaign appealed to the struggling rural areas and the working class voters who in 2016 delivered him the White House. His rhetoric reached out to red states that have become redder as the nation has sorted and polarized according to affluence and education; it also appealed to male breadwinners who have felt left behind by shifting cultural norms and technological advances.

特朗普的竞选活动吸引了挣扎中的农村地区和工人阶级选民，他们曾在2016年将他送入白宫。随着国家根据富裕程度和教育程度进行的分类和两极分化，他的言论触及了那些因而变得更红的红州，也吸引了因文化规范转型和技术进步而感到被抛在后面的男性养家者。

At rallies, Mr. Trump, 78, excited nostalgia for the heady early years of his tenure, highlighting the 2017 tax cut and his conservative Supreme Court appointments. He vowed to lower taxes still further for nearly every audience he spoke to, from waiters — “no taxes on tips” — to billionaires.

在集会上，78岁的特朗普兴奋地怀念起他任职总统初期的辉煌岁月，强调了2017年的减税政策和他任命的保守派最高法院大法官。他发誓要进一步降低几乎所有听众的税率，从服务员——“小费免税”——到亿万富翁。

His economic promises were often overshadowed by his attacks. He derided scientists and medical experts, while playing down the nearly 350,000 American deaths from Covid-19 that occurred during his last year in office. He lashed out in vulgar and sometimes violent terms at Democrats, immigrants and women. His ads conjured fear of unchecked borders, rampant crime and transgender adolescents. He falsely maintained that he had not lost the 2020 election — a claim that triggered a riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, by his supporters. He vowed payback.

他咄咄逼人的言辞常常削弱他的经济承诺。他揶揄科学家和医学专家，同时淡化了在他任职的最后一年里，有近35万美国人死于新冠病毒的事实。他用粗俗、有时甚至是暴力的语言抨击民主党人、移民和女性。他的广告勾起了人们对不受约束的边境、猖獗的犯罪和变性青少年的恐惧。他谎称自己没有输掉2020年的大选，这一说法引发了2021年1月6日他的支持者在国会大厦的骚乱。他曾发誓要报复。

And many voters expressed reservations in interviews about Mr. Trump’s character, felony convictions, fondness for autocrats and fitness for office. But many also used phrases like “the lesser of two evils” to describe him.

许多选民在接受采访时对特朗普的品格、重罪判决、对专制人物的青睐以及是否适合担任公职持保留意见。但许多人也用“两害相权取其轻”等语言来形容他。

In Bucks County, Pa., Marina Raimondo, 41, an aesthetician and mother of two who had immigrated to the United States as a child from Ukraine, said she was “not super gung-ho” for Mr. Trump or the propaganda he repeated about migrants.

在宾夕法尼亚州巴克斯县，41岁的玛丽娜·雷蒙多是一名美容师和两个孩子的母亲，小时候从乌克兰移民到美国。她说，她对特朗普或他反复强调的关于移民的宣传“并不超级热衷”。

“They’re eating the cats, they’re eating the dogs — what is that?” she wondered. She said she had even briefly considered sitting out the election. But she had voted for the former president over Ms. Harris because he seemed to be “stronger,” she said.

她问道：“他们在吃猫，他们在吃狗——这算哪门子的话？”她说，她甚至一度考虑不投票。但她还是把票投给了前总统，而不是贺锦丽，因为他似乎“更强”，她说。

“Let’s just say I’ve held my nose and voted a couple of times,” said Tad Fogel, 80, a retiree and unaffiliated voter in Hendersonville, N.C., who said he voted for Mr. Trump because he agreed with his positions on illegal immigration and the economy.

80岁的塔德·福格尔是北卡罗来纳州亨德森维尔的一名退休人员和无党派选民，他说，他之所以投票给特朗普，是因为他同意特朗普在非法移民和经济问题上的立场。

特朗普及其家人和助手在佛罗里达州西棕榈滩举行的选举观看派对上发表讲话。

Ms. Harris, 60, had offered to “turn the page” on the Trump era. Black and South Asian, the child of immigrants who had risen as a prosecutor in California, she promised a “new generation” of leadership and a more positive, truthful and even joyful politics of inclusion. Hard-line Trump backers, it was understood, were probably never going to shift their support. But she extended herself to moderate and Republican voters who viewed Mr. Trump as a divisive incompetent and his camp as dangerous extremists more interested in power and wealth than the common good of the nation. “We are not going back,” she repeatedly vowed.

现年60岁的贺锦丽曾提出要“翻过”特朗普时代这一页。她有黑人和南亚人血统，是移民的后代，曾在加利福尼亚州担任检察官，她承诺将领导“新一代”，并推行更加积极、真实甚至快乐的包容政治。大家都明白，特朗普的强硬支持者可能永远不会改变他们的支持。但她努力与温和派和共和党选民建立关系，这些选民认为特朗普是一个制造分裂的无能之辈，他的阵营是危险的极端分子，更关心权力和财富，而不是国家的共同利益。贺锦丽一再誓言：“我们不走回头路。”

In interviews, those voters did not seem moved by her promise of good government and “hard work.” In Arizona, in fact, Lele Pierce, 27, a student at the for-profit Grand Canyon University, said she voted for Mr. Trump because he was a “business guy” who showed that “anyone could technically run for the presidency.”

在采访中，这些选民似乎并没有被她承诺的良好政府和“努力工作”所打动。事实上，亚利桑那州营利性学校大峡谷大学的学生、27岁的蕾蕾·皮尔斯说，她之所以投票给特朗普，是因为他是一个“生意人”，他表明了“实际上任何人都可以竞选总统”。

In Lewiston, Maine, Ridwan Mohamed, 19, a home-care aide who often works 80-hour weeks, said he voted for Mr. Trump because Mr. Trump said that he would eliminate federal taxes on overtime pay.

在缅因州的刘易斯顿，19岁的里德万·穆罕默德是一名家庭护理助理，经常每周工作80小时，他说，他之所以投票给特朗普，是因为他说过会取消对加班工资征收的联邦税。

In Austin, Texas, Khalid Marshall, 42, an animal protection officer who described himself as a Republican-leaning independent, said on Monday that he would vote for Mr. Trump because “he still acts like a guy, which is kind of what got him in trouble, maybe,” and because he is “better for the population of men.”

在得克萨斯州奥斯汀，42岁的动物保护官员卡利德·马歇尔自称是一名倾向于共和党的独立人士，他周一表示，他将投票给特朗普，因为“他的行为举止仍然像个男人，也许这正是他惹上麻烦的原因”，还因为他“更有利于男性人口”。

Ms. Harris had come late to the campaign, parachuting in when Mr. Biden bowed out after his debilitating performance during the first presidential debate. With only a few months to fully introduce herself nationally to voters, she sought to emphasize Mr. Trump’s norm-breaking candidacy, but also introduce economic proposals on housing, child care and inflation. She talked about helping small businesses.

贺锦丽参加竞选的时间较晚，是在拜登在第一场总统辩论中表现不佳而退出后突然宣布的。她只有几个月的时间向全国选民全面介绍自己，她试图强调特朗普打破常规的候选资格，但也介绍了有关住房、儿童保育和通货膨胀的经济提案。她谈到了帮助小企业。

But that agenda could not contend with an unpopular administration.

但这一议程难以克服不受欢迎的政府带来的挑战。

A key stumbling block was the inflation that had spiked during the Biden administration, as factory shutdowns from Covid-19 hit global supply chains and the president pumped federal pandemic aid into the economy to protect middle- and working-class employment.

一个关键的绊脚石是拜登执政期间飙升的通货膨胀，因为新冠大流行导致的工厂停产打击了全球供应链，总统向经济注入了联邦大流行病援助，以保护中产阶级和工人阶级的就业。

Yet another was the all-too-tangible reality of need at home, as natural disasters pummeled state after state, raising the question of whether Americans could still afford idealism elsewhere.

另一个原因是，国内的需求现实得不能再现实，自然灾害袭击了一个又一个州，让人怀疑美国人是否还能负担得起在其他地方投入理想主义。

密歇根州选民雅各布·德特洛夫对美国向乌克兰提供援助表示质疑，因为北卡罗来纳州的人民正面临着飓风海伦过后的艰难重建。

“I moved from North Carolina,” Jacob Dettloff, a 31-year-old salesman, said just after casting a ballot for Mr. Trump in Antrim County, Mich., his new home. “The hurricane damage up there, especially in the Appalachian region, where they’re really poor, it seems like they’re not getting enough help.”

31岁的推销员雅各布·德特洛夫说：“我从北卡罗来纳州搬来这里，”他刚在新家密歇根州安特里姆郡为特朗普投下选票。“那里的飓风造成了破坏，尤其是在阿巴拉契亚地区，那些真正的穷人似乎没有得到足够帮助。”

“All I ever hear is ‘We still need more help,’” he said, comparing the significant assistance Ukraine is receiving from the United States with the federal response to Hurricane Helene’s victims.

他说：“我听到的全是‘我们还需要更多帮助’，”他将乌克兰从美国获得的大量援助与美国联邦政府对飓风海伦灾民的救助进行了比较。

“I’m not saying don’t help out your fellow man, especially other countries, but God dang it, they’re our brothers,” he said. “We should help those guys first, I think.”

“我不是说不要帮助别的人类，尤其是其他国家，但上帝啊，他们（飓风灾民）是我们的兄弟，”他说。“我认为，我们应该首先帮助那些人。”