Over the past several months, a handful of high-profile Senate races have tilted in the Democrats' direction. This has sparked hope in President Barack Obama's party that the November elections may not be so bad.

It's a mirage. What's lethal for Democrats is that the election is being framed by the economy, and voters are getting more, not less, pessimistic. Most say they think the country remains in a recession, even though the downturn actually ended last September. Less than one in five independents says the country is on the right track, and a plurality gives Obama negative ratings. In 2008, Obama carried the independent vote 52% to 44%.

Ray Fair, an economist at Yale University who projects electoral results based primarily on economic performance, currently sees Democrats winning 50.5% of the House popular vote, which would probably be enough for the party to retain control, though sharply down from the current 255 to 178 split (with two vacancies). This is predicated, he says, on "reasonably strong" economic growth in the third quarter. Currently, the consensus forecast is for growth of a little less than 3%, which probably would reduce Fair's forecast for Democrats.

Ann Selzer, an Iowa pollster, says it will be extremely hard to reverse these perceptions about the economy over the next three-and-a-half months. "If Democrats had a bullet that would create jobs without adding to the deficit, maybe," she says, emphasising 'maybe', "that would be an issue to run on." "This election is mostly driven by the economy," says John Weaver, a Republican strategist and former top adviser to Senator John McCain. "The White House, for reasons inexplicable to me, has chosen not to focus on jobs and the economy; nothing matters more, and Obama doesn't strike a very empathetic pose at times."

Geoffrey Garin, one of the top Democratic advisers, says: "The lack of optimism that people are feeling about the economy really sets the tone for this election."

The gap between the reality of an economy, which, while struggling, is rebounding from the depths and the public's perception that it is worse than before reflects communications shortcomings as well. Yet Weaver, who expects his party to have a banner November, says the gains may not be enduring.

"We're still the party of the angry white man, and we seem to have not learned anything about reaching out to new voters, Hispanics or younger people," he says. "Even with our success in November, we're creating a huge deficit structurally going into the next presidential election."

Bloomberg