At the end of last week there were a few stories suggesting that perhaps Democrats had seen a turning point and were closing the gap heading in to the midterms. From Friday's First Read:

Are Democrats closing the gap? Largely lost in all the recent focus on the BP spill, Shirley Sherrod, the Arizona immigration law, Charlie Rangel, and the Wikileaks leak is this bit of news: Democrats -- perhaps ever so slightly -- are beginning to close the midterm gap.

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Sean Trende RealClearPolitics election 2010

Charlie Cook's Saturday column for National Journal was titled "A Turning Point for Democrats?"

We're currently experiencing one of those periods of uncertainty. One interpretation of recent results is that the momentum in this critical midterm election has shifted and the Republican wave has subsided. Another interpretation is that it's too soon to tell whether much has changed at all.

For the weeks of July 12-18 and July 19-25, the Gallup Organization's weekly aggregation of daily tracking polls showed Democrats ahead among all registered voters on the generic congressional ballot test question by 6 points (49 percent to 43 percent) and 4 points (48 percent to 44 percent), respectively. Each poll canvassed more than 1,500 registered voters nationwide. For the uninitiated, the generic ballot test question tries to approximate what the popular two-party vote will be nationwide and, over time, it has closely corresponded to the outcome on Election Day.

Gallup noted that this was the first time that either party has held an advantage of this size for two consecutive weeks.

To be fair, both pieces made it clear that the Gallup numbers could easily be a short-term blip and Cook even suggested he thought they probably were, since there had been no "defining event" in the last two weeks or corroborating data from other national pollsters. (Yesterday's Gallup weekly tracking showed the GOP back to a five-point lead among registered voters.)

What was more interesting in Cook's column was this observation:

So, if Democrats really have turned up the heat and are running 4 or 5 points ahead among registered voters, the practical result would be about an even proposition among likely midterm voters and the national popular vote. If that were true, it would mean a very, very close contest for control of the House.

This is both a critical point and a correct one. If Democrats were 5 points ahead in the generic ballot among registered voters, then that would only mean that they were probably on track to tie Republicans nationwide on Election Day. And if the Republicans and Democrats were to split the popular vote in November, the odds are that the result will be a Republican Congress, because the median Congressional district in the country leans somewhat toward the Republicans.

If we extend Cook's analysis to the current Gallup poll and other registered voter polls in the RCP Average right now, then what we are currently looking at is a 10-point generic lead for Republicans among the likely electorate. This would represent historic gains for the GOP. This would be larger than the 52-45% edge that gave the Republicans 230 seats in 1994 or the 52%-44% win that gave Democrats 233 seats in 2006. A ten-point win would be more consistent with the 53%-43% edge Democrats had in 2008, which gave them 257 seats - 80 seats more than Republicans presently occupy.

And it's not clear that things are going to get any better for Democrats in the next 100 days. Political scientists don't agree on much, but they do generally agree that midterm elections are driven heavily by Presidential job approval . President Obama's approval and disapproval numbers seemingly hit a plateau around January of this year, at roughly a 50-50 split.

Recently, though, the President's disapproval numbers have spiked again, and his approvals have fallen. There is now a near-majority of voters disapproving of him, the highest number in the history of the RCP Average. This also means that there are probably around 100 House Democrats running for re-election in districts where the President's approval rating is upside-down. If this trend continues, it could be potentially catastrophic for Democrats, driving their generic numbers down even further.

Using Cook's transformation from registered voters to likely voters, Gallup is presently pointing to losses for Democrats much greater than the 40-seat loss that most prognosticators seem willing to discuss. A lot of the conversation in Washington over the last few weeks has been "can the Democrats lose the House?" Much of this is written and discussed as if losing the House and 40-50 seats is the worst case scenario for Democrats. It is not.

Back on April 14 I wrote:

That said, I think those who suggest that the House is barely in play, or that we are a long way from a 1994-style scenario are missing the mark. A 1994-style scenario is probably the most likely outcome at this point. Moreover, it is well within the realm of possibility - not merely a far-fetched scenario - that Democratic losses could climb into the 80 or 90-seat range.

On April 14, President Obama's Job Approval in the RCP Average was 47.7% approve, 46.7% disapprove. Today it is 45.3%, 49.5% disapprove. The RCP Average in the Generic Congressional Ballot on April 14 was 44.8% for the GOP, 42.3% for Democrats back in April. Today it is 46.5% for the GOP and 40.5% for the Democrats.

Could the Democrats keep Republican gains to under 40 and hold the House? Absolutely. Could they lose 80-90 seats. Absolutely.