新闻英语词汇随着人类社会的快节奏发展而发生着日新月异的变化。学习新闻英语对于提高英语水平和拓宽知识面非常重要。掌握欧美网络报刊常用英语政治词汇有助于阅读和理解当今欧美主流媒体的新闻时事报道，了解国内外局势和世界的发展方向。
儒琴新闻英语词汇 Journalism Vocabulary
enthusiasm gap 投票热情差距
“enthusiasm gap” 这个词组在美国中期选举或11月的总统大选报道中经常看到，可以翻译成“投票热情差距”， 其实就是指”the turnout gap“（投票率差距）。“投票热情差距”更加形象，似乎给人的印象是，谁的竞选庭院招牌多（yard signs）， 谁的喊叫的声音最大，谁最喜欢手下谈论政治。这些事情只在一定程度上影响投票结果。“投票热情差距”可以被定义为热衷于投票的共和党人的百分比减去热衷于投票的民主党人的百分比之间的差异。
这些相互关联的概念——选举热情差距（the enthusiasm gap）、可能选民差距（the likely-voter gap）、投票率差距（he turnout gap）——都触及了一个问题: 一个政党的选民相对于其他政党的参与度有多高?从预测选举的角度来看，我们主要关心的是两党相对的地位。
从过去竞选来看，选举热情差距更多的是由于共和党人对选举的兴趣异常高涨，而不是沮丧的民主党人。民主党人通常会遭遇某种“选举热情落差”， 有时他们可能埋葬领先优势。
民主党人在中期选举中通常会遇到一些麻烦，因为他们依赖的是年轻选民和少数族裔等选民群体，这些人在中期选举中通常不会投很多票。共和党人对选举异常兴奋，而民主党人的热情与之持平。这也会造成热情差距。
今天的华盛顿邮报刊登一篇题为【Does Joe Biden have an enthusiasm problem?】的文章，提到了共和党可能在选举热情占有优势：
Does Joe Biden have an enthusiasm problem?
A poll this week from The Washington Post and ABC News had some rough findings for President Trump — chief among them being his 10-point deficit to Joe Biden.
But Trump, ever the optimist, found something he liked quite a bit in the poll.
“Biggest ‘enthusiasm’ lead ever!” he declared.
That may be characteristically overstated, but Trump does have a point. The Post-ABC poll does show a major enthusiasm gap between him and Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. While 69 percent of Trump supporters said they were “very enthusiastic” about supporting him, just half that number — 34 percent — said the same in Biden’s case. To the extent that enthusiasm matters in presidential elections, Trump has an unusually large lead.
But those numbers don’t tell the whole story.
For one, an enthusiastic vote counts just as much as an unenthusiastic one. Even if Democrats don’t love Biden, the important thing is that they show up to vote for him. It may be tougher to get them to the polls if they’re not exactly jazzed about his candidacy, but he has some room for error if he does in fact lead nationally by 10 points. (And it may be somewhat understandable that the party is still somewhat unenthusiastic given that many of its members didn’t vote for Biden in the primary.)
The second — and more important — point is this is just one way to measure enthusiasm. The great uniter among Democrats right now isn’t their own presumptive candidate, but the alternative: Trump. And if you dig a little deeper, you’ll see there’s plenty of enthusiasm to vote regardless of the Democratic nominee.
You only need to look at the tweet that Trump passed along above. In a separate finding, the Post-ABC poll found that 74 percent of Biden supporters said they’ll definitely vote for him, while 87 percent of Trump supporters said they’ll definitely vote for him. Another enthusiasm gap!
