A voter walks out of a voting booth after casting his ballot in New Orleans, Louisiana. | Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images Poll: Congressional Democrats up 14 points over GOP on generic ballot

A poll out Tuesday shows Democratic congressional candidates with a clear advantage over Republicans just two months before Election Day.

In the Washington Post-ABC News poll, registered voters said they favored a generic Democratic candidate over a Republican one 52 percent to 38 percent. The same poll showed Democrats with just a 4-percentage-point advantage in April, and with a 12-point advantage in January.


The new poll shows a slight enthusiasm gap in favor of Democrats, with 80 percent of self-identified Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents saying they are absolutely certain to vote, compared with 74 percent of self-identified Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. Among Democrats who said they did not vote in the 2014 midterms, 63 percent say they are absolutely certain to vote in November.

The poll is the latest indicator of a potential "blue wave" of Democratic victories forecast by many for November's midterm elections. Democrats will look to flip at least 23 seats in order to retake control of the House of Representatives and loosen GOP control over the legislative branch. That effort is likely to be hampered by poll results showing that 58 percent of respondents say the economy is either "excellent" or "good," typically a favorable predictor for the majority party.

The survey also found President Donald Trump playing a role in most voters’ midterm preferences. The survey found that 6 in 10 voters would prefer that Democrats control Congress to act “as a check on Trump” over a GOP-controlled Congress “to support Trump’s agenda.”

And it found that regardless of voters’ opinions of the president, a majority, 59 percent, consider it either extremely or very important to back a candidate who shares their views.

The poll was conducted Aug. 26-29 among a national random sample of 1,003 adults, including 879 registered voters. The sample of registered voters has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.