Democrats take a double-digit lead over Republicans just two months before the midterms

Jae C. Hong/AP

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the winner of a Democratic congressional primary in New York.

• Democrats have a massive 14-point advantage over Republicans in a new generic congressional ballot.
• Just 38% of registered voters said they would vote for Republican House candidates, while 52% said they'd vote for Democrats.
• It's unclear whether this imbalance will hold - the Democrats' advantage over the GOP has swung from single digits to the teens just this year.

In almost exactly two months, voters will go to the polls to decide 35 Senate races, all 435 House seats, and thousands of state and local races in every state in the country.

And when asked whether they'll support Democrats or Republicans for Congress, voters say they'll vote for Democrats by 14 points, according to a new poll.

A late August Washington Post-ABC News poll found that Democrats have a 14-point advantage over Republicans in the 2018 midterm elections. Just 38% of registered voters said they would vote for Republican House candidates, while 52% said they'd vote for Democrats.

Most of those polled expressed a general disillusionment with Washington lawmakers. While a majority of Americans believe both Democrats and Republicans are out of touch, a larger percentage - 63% - said they believe the GOP has lost touch with average Americans, while 51% said the same of Democrats.

In the last three midterm elections - 2006, 2010, and 2014 - the party in the White House has seen large losses in Congress, and many believe that if voters' dissatisfaction with the president and his party remain high, Democrats will flip the 23 seats they need to take control of the House.

Illustrating the left's - and right's - energized voter base, 80% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they're absolutely sure they'll vote in the midterms, while 74% of Republicans and right-leaning independents say the same. And 75% of Democratic-leaning voters say it's more important to vote this year than in previous midterms, while just 57% of Republican-leaning voters say the same.

President Donald Trump's approval ratings have remained consistently low throughout his time in office - hovering around 40% - even as 58% of Americans (a 17-year high) believe the US economy is in excellent or good shape. This combination of low approval for a president and a strong economy has the GOP worried that a blue wave will sweep the country in November.

The Democrats' advantage over the GOP has swung from the single digits to the teens just this year. In April, the Post-ABC poll found voters favored Democrats by four points, while last January the same poll found Democrats with a 12-point lead.

Notably, 60% of voters say they want Democrats to control Congress to act as "a check on Trump," rather than a GOP-controlled legislature "to support Trump's agenda."

But the demographic divide is stark. While male voters were split between support for Democrats and Republicans, and women voters preferred Democrats by 58% to 33% - a 25-point gender gap. Democrats also lead by 18 points among independent voters and 50 points among non-white voters.

The Washington Post-ABC poll surveyed 1,003 adults, including 879 registered voters, nationwide between August 26 and 29 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points (with a margin of error of 4 percentage points for the sample of registered voters).