'We've been up this hill before'

As the US prepares for the November midterm elections, Democratic strength in the polls is feeding confidence among party members, but others point to the last election and warn that this confidence may be premature. By Adam Nagourney and Robin Toner

There is something unusual bubbling in Democratic political waters these days: optimism.

With each new delivery of bad news for Republicans – another Republican congressman under investigation, another Republican district conceded, another poll showing support for the Republican-controlled Congress collapsing – the Democratic Party, so used to losing, is considering the possibility that it could win in November.

"I've moved from optimistic to giddy," said Gordon R Fischer, a former chairman of the Iowa Democratic Party. "I really have."

For Democrats these days, life is one measure glee, one measure dread and one measure hubris. If they are as confident as they have been in a decade about regaining at least one house of Congress – and they are – it is a confidence tempered by the searing memories of being outmanoeuvred in recent elections by superior Republican organising and financial strength, and by continued wariness about the political skills of President George W Bush's senior adviser, Karl Rove.

Rove has made it clear that he considers Democratic optimism unjustified, predicting that his party's cash advantage and get-out-the-vote expertise will dash Democratic dreams yet again. And Democrats say they welcome every passing dawn with relief, fearful that the next one will bring a development that could fundamentally alter the nature of the race, like the re-emergence of Osama bin Laden on election eve, which happened in 2004.

Still, Democratic ebullience could be found in all corners of Washington over the past few days. It was palpable at social and work gatherings, where Democrats traded gossip about how big a Democratic majority in the House could be; in Capitol Hill conference rooms, where Democrats were preparing transition plans (under orders to keep them quiet); and in offices of Democratic strategists and pollsters, who were drawing up growing lists of Republicans who might be vulnerable.

Stanley B Greenberg, who was the White House pollster for President Bill Clinton in 1994, when Republicans shocked Democrats by capturing Congress, commissioned a poll recently and emailed it around town with a single-word headline: "Meltdown". In an interview, Greenberg said, "I don't see how we can lose the House; I don't think it's even close."

Representative Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, who is in line to become speaker if her party wins the House, has put out the word that no one should be talking with too much confidence or detail about the days after 7 November. But even Pelosi has slipped on occasion. In a recent interview with the Associated Press, when asked which suite of offices she would use as speaker, she said with a laugh, "I'll have any suite I want."

The change in mood, and evidence of Democratic strength in the polls and in fundraising, is feeding some crucial deliberations by Democratic leaders as the discussion in some quarters goes from whether Democrats can win to how large a margin the party can gain.

Some Democrats have expressed apprehension that this confidence may be irrational, or at least premature, and are counselling restraint. Part of that is tactical: Democrats are trying not to help the Republican Party as it works to turn out its conservative base by presenting apocalyptic visions of a Congress led by liberals like Barney Frank and Pelosi.

Part of the Democrats' queasiness stems from painful familiarity with Rove's record of success and from their own recognition that they hold only slim leads in many races and could yet fall victim to an assertive and sophisticated Republican turnout operation.

"I'm a little concerned that we are spending all our time talking about what our agenda will be in January rather than how we are going to get our votes out in early November," said Chris Redfern, chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party.

Some of that concern is worry about the longterm psychic damage the party's rank-and-file may suffer if Democrats collapse at the finish line again.

Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic strategist who advised the presidential campaign of Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, said: "We all sat around in 2004 and looked at exit polls that said John Kerry was going to be president. And that was wrong. We've been up this hill before."

To win the House, Democrats must capture 15 seats. Of the 40 or so they see in play, three are held by Democrats and one by an independent, strategists on both sides say.

The prospects for a Democratic takeover in the Senate, where the party needs six seats, are tougher. Republicans say four of their incumbents are in serious danger of losing – in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island – and they are trying to build a firewall by pouring most of their resources into Senate races in Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia, where polls show the contests even.

Senator Charles E Schumer of New York, chairman of the Democratic Senate-campaign committee, said his committee, which has consistently out-raised its Republican counterpart this year, had more than enough money to compete with the Republicans in those states. Schumer said he was holding back some resources in case Republicans made an unexpected move in the final days of the campaign.

While there may be a price to overconfidence, in a sense of complacency at some campaign headquarters, there are advantages at the grass-roots level, where it can fuel the excitement that Democrats hope will result in significant gains on 7 November. Republicans face the flip side of this problem, with the prospect that their voters, discouraged by the party's travails, will stay home.

All this has put Democrats in an unfamiliar place, but one they seem to be enjoying. "I'm a congenital pessimist," said Howard Wolfson, a consultant advising Democrats in several competitive contests in New York. "But I'm as bullish on our chances as I have been at any time over the last 12 years."

© 2006 New York Times