A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows Democrats are in generally good position to expand their Congressional majority, but that the emerging Republican talking point that this year will be an anti-incumbent year is more than just a pretty excuse.

The Democratic Party is in better position that Republicans, validating talk of a GOP branding problem. 45% of voters see the Democratic Party in a positive light, while 35% see them negatively. Just 34% see the Republican Party in a positive way, while 49% say they view the GOP negatively.

Americans also want a Democratic Congress by wide margins, favoring that outcome by a 14-point margin, 49%-35%. That margin is down a point from the last time pollsters asked the question, just days before the 2006 election. Essentially unchanged, that means Democrats are preferred now, after more than a year in charge, as much as they were when voters were paying the most attention and Democrats took thirty GOP-held seats.

And as Barack Obama pitches change, that message may work on a congressional level as well. Only 20% of Americans say the country is headed in the right direction, while 66% say it's off on the wrong track. President Bush has only a 32% approval rating, while 63% disapprove, and John McCain is seen as likely to follow Bush's policies by 77% of the electorate. Just 19% say McCain would go his own way.

Those numbers spell out a series of disasters the GOP will have to work through. Forget McCain's strong showing in head to head polls against Obama and Hillary Clinton, if he is seen as close to President Bush he may even win the election while losing seats in the House and Senate. A weak GOP brand gives the party little footing from which to launch serious challengers to Democratic incumbents, and Republicans will also have a hard time convincing voters they are the ones who offer a new direction for the country.

But not all is bad news. Just 19% of survey respondents said they approve of the job Congress is doing, while 69% said they disapproved. That's close to the way Congress was viewed in the middle of October in 2006, just a few weeks before Democrats won back control; then, only 16% of voters approved and 75% disapproved of the body's job performance.

"The image of Republicans in Congress is low," NRCC chair Tom Cole admitted to Politics Nation in an interview last month. "The Democrats have managed, in a year, to get down to where we're at. They had a real opportunity to be something different. Now, it's not an anti-Republican mood, it's an anti-Washington mood, and that affects both parties a lot, and hurts all incumbents across the board."

Cole's is a message Republicans across the country are parroting. If they are right, perhaps Republicans can win back at least a few of the seats they lost in 2006. If voters still associate Congress with Washington as a whole and the Republican White House, though, the GOP could be in for another rough ride in November.

The survey, conducted by Hart/McInturff, headed by two well-respected bipartisan pollsters, was conducted 3/7-10 among 1012 registered voters for a margin of error of +/- 3.1%.