Both Parties Sensing Tighter House Races

Democrats see independent voters, who continue to register disapproval of Bush and Congress, as the key to victory. Republicans, citing low turnout in many primaries this year, believe many of those independents will not vote in November and are focused on mobilizing their own base.

A sustained rise in the president's approval rating could translate directly into fewer lost seats in the House, according to two political scientists who have built models forecasting House elections.

Alan Abramowitz, a professor at Emory University in Atlanta, previously projected Democratic gains of about 25 seats in the House, but based on the latest Gallup Poll, he said the gains might be closer to 15 seats.

If Bush's approval is at 40 percent, that will translate to Democratic gains of 13 to 16 seats, projected James Campbell, who is on the faculty at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He said that could drop to 10 to 14 seats if the president's approval stands at 45 percent.

What continues to encourage Democrats is their advantage in what operatives call "generic ballot" polls. That is when surveys ask voters which party they intend to vote for in the election -- with no names of candidates attached. This measurement often appears more optimistic for the Democrats than the actual election results, but Republicans have been about 10 percentage points behind the Democrats through much of this year, including in the latest polls that showed Bush's approval rising.

The decline in gas prices has diminished the significance of an issue that has the power to move voters to the Democrats. In May, when average gasoline prices were $2.95 a gallon, 15 percent of Americans in a Washington Post-ABC News survey cited the issue as the single most important in determining their vote. An ABC News poll in early September, when the average price of a gallon was $2.73, showed that just 5 percent of those surveyed cited it as their most important issue. Gasoline prices have fallen even further since then.

Bush's speeches on terrorism, culminating with his nationally televised Oval Office speech on the night of Sept. 11, were designed to shift focus away from the unpopular war in Iraq to the broader issue that aided Republicans in 2002 and 2004. Whether Bush has succeeded in doing so is not yet clear, although there are signs that Republicans have gained ground against the Democrats in the public's evaluation of which party is better equipped to confront the threat of global terrorism.

"It's probably their best issue because they've won with it in 2002 and 2004," said Rhodes Cook, an independent analyst. "It's like in football. If a play is successful, you keep running it until your opponents stop you, and the Democrats haven't stopped them."

In a new memo from the liberal Democracy Corps, Democratic strategists Stanley Greenberg, Jeremy Rosner, Amy Gershkoff and James Carville argue that Democrats can contest the national security issue successfully, if they engage robustly with the Republicans and continue to press economic issues. "The president's strategy is backfiring because it is driving independents to the Democrats," they wrote.

How all this is affecting House races is what preoccupies strategists in the two parties. Democrats say they see no significant shift, while GOP strategists say they have seen some improvements in their candidates' standing. But they caution that the overall climate remains negative. A survey in targeted House districts by the Republican firm Fabrizio, McLaughlin & Associates comparing voters' attitudes today versus four years ago found that, "in every measure tested, GOP fortunes have eroded significantly."

The impact in individual districts appears uneven, based on interviews with strategists tracking the races. In the Northeast, where Democrats must pick up a number of seats to regain the majority, Republicans say their prospects have improved. They point to recent GOP polls that show embattled Pennsylvania Reps. Jim Gerlach and Curt Weldon and Connecticut Rep. Nancy Johnson leading their challengers as evidence of progress. Republicans also say they are more confident about holding several potentially vulnerable districts in New York.

But Republican incumbents in Indiana and Kentucky remain in deep trouble and Ohio's environment has kept Republicans on the defensive. Democratic prospects in several districts where Republican incumbents are retiring have brightened in recent weeks. Republicans, for example, see little chance of holding the seat in Arizona's 8th District after conservative Randy Graf won the primary. Late last week, the NRCC canceled October television time it had reserved in that district. Open seats in Iowa and Colorado now held by the Republicans also could easily tip to the Democrats, as could the Texas seat left vacant by former House majority leader Tom DeLay.

Not all the movement is related to the GOP political offensive. In Connecticut, the nasty Senate race between insurgent Democratic nominee Ned Lamont against Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, who is now running as an independent after losing the primary, appears to have spilled over on the three critically important House races in the state.

Lieberman has been leading Lamont in the polls, thanks to Republican and independent support, and key Democrats say they are increasingly worried about the party's prospects of carrying the GOP districts held by Reps. Johnson, Chris Shays and Rob Simmons.

These races, like many others this fall, are expected to remain close until Election Day.

Polling director Jon Cohen contributed to this report.