The Hill released polls in 12 competitive Democratic-held House districts, and the numbers look pretty brutal (MoE 5%):
AZ-01 CO-04 IL-11 MI-07 MD-01 NM-02
DEM 39 41 31 41 40 42
GOP 46 44 49 41 43 46
NV-03 OH-15 OH-16 PA-03 VA-02 VA-05
DEM 44 38 39 36 36 44
GOP 47 47 42 49 42 45
Now, this isn't armageddon. For example, VA-05 is Tom Periello's district, and being tied at this stage in the game is actually good news. He's long been assumed to be the most endangered Democratic incumbents (SUSA just had him down 58-35). Given the R+5 PVI of this district (meaning it is five points more Republican than the nation at large), in this political climate, in a state that is trending hard against Obama, and given the tough progressive votes Periello has cast, a tied race is certainly cause for optimism.
So yeah, the numbers could be worse, but let's not kid ourselves. The GOP has the upper hand in every single one of these 12 contests. And digging into the polls' internals makes clear exactly why Democrats are in this dire predicament -- the oft-discussed intensity gap.
From the aggregate numbers of all poll respondents, in all 12 races:
Thinking about the 2008 election, for whom did you vote for? (Actual 2008 results in parenthesis)
AZ-01 CO-04 IL-11 MI-07 MD-01 NM-02
Obama 33 (44) 43 (49) 41 (53) 49 (52) 37 (40) 39 (49)
McCain 56 (54) 46 (50) 47 (45) 39 (46) 53 (58) 52 (50)
NV-03 OH-15 OH-16 PA-03 VA-02 VA-05
Obama 43 (55) 48 (54) 40 (48) 41 (49) 45 (51) 42 (48)
McCain 49 (43) 39 (45) 50 (50) 48 (49) 45 (49) 51 (51)
What those numbers say is that a significant portion of Obama voters told the pollsters that they had no intention of voting this year. Filtering them out, we have our turnout gap.
Other poll questions also point out to a significant enthusiasm gap -- in other words, Republican voters can't wait to get to the polls. They'd walk over flaming broken glass to vote, while those Democrats who do plan on voting are about as happy about it as getting a root canal. While a happy vote counts just as much as an unhappy vote, that enthusiasm gap likely hurts Democrats on GOTV.
Looking above, it's clear that Democrats would be ahead, and oftentimes comfortably so, if the voter turnout looks like 2008. Looking at Periello's VA-05 again, Democrats are six points less likely to turn out this year than they did in 2008. Give Periello's those six points, and it's a much different race.
This is what it'll all come down to -- turning out the base, and the enthusiasm gap makes it that much harder.
But if we can turn that around in the three weeks we have left in this election season, we can go from a disastrous night to surviving the toughest political climate since 1994.