A number of national polls and on-the-ground reports in key races indicate that the GOP may be headed for big gains in next week’s midterm elections. Sunday’s Wall Street Journal/NBC/Annenberg survey found that registered voters prefer a Republican-controlled Congress to a Democrat one 46% to 42%. The GOP also held an 11-point advantage among likely voters in the same poll. Can Republicans capitalize on Election Day?

The GOP is so emboldened by this recent trend that the party is expanding its investment into additional House races. Optimistic analysts believe Republicans are within striking distance of a 12-seat gain, which would match Republicans’ post-World War II record of 246 seats.

Democrats long believed they would face tough prospects in 2014, but now their plight is nothing short of dire. Republican expansion into soft Democrat districts in Nevada, Iowa and Texas, among other states, has forced Democrats to shift resources to districts where they need to protect incumbents.

The reason is simple: Barack Obama’s popularity continues to shrink as his administration proves increasingly incompetent over the handling of the economy, ISIL, Ebola, immigration and a host of other issues. He is a weight around Democrats’ necks.

Economist Thomas Sowell observes, “The great boxing champion Joe Louis once said about one of his opponents, who was known for his speed: ‘He can run but he can’t hide.’ In the Congressional elections this year, many Democrats are running away from Barack Obama, but they can’t hide their record of voting for Obama’s agenda more than 90 percent of the time.”

Indeed, running away from the president hasn’t helped. As Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) pointed out, every Democrat cast the “deciding vote” for ObamaCare. If she’s going down, she’s taking some colleagues with her.

Likewise, Democrats share the blame for bad economic policy that hampered recovery. Heck, even Joe Biden says, “The middle class has been left behind” over the last few years. That’s Obamanomics for you.

And their traditionally poor showing on the national security front is even more obvious with ISIL on the rise.

Obama’s policies, he helpfully reminded us all, “are on the ballot – every single one of them.”

The overall fundraising advantage Democrats held, gleefully reported by the Leftmedia in the last few months, is now of little consequence. Ads in the days leading up to the election are expensive, and those fundraising dollars aren’t going as far as they did in the summer – or even in September.

Prospects for Democrats in the Senate aren’t much better. Signs still point to a GOP takeover of the upper chamber, though pollsters and pundits aren’t as confident about what such a victory might look like. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is locked in a tight contest with Alison Lundergan Grimes, and Kansas incumbent Pat Roberts is still fighting a tough race against “Independent” Greg Orman, but Republicans look poised otherwise for solid gains.

A big issue of concern for Senate Democrats is the loss of women voters. Democrats depend on women to counter men, who largely vote Republican. This year, however, women are drifting away from the Democrat Party in key Senate races like Iowa, Arkansas and Colorado. Losing that voting bloc would be more than an embarrassment – it would be a devastating blow.

The rabid Left has endeavored to mobilize unmarried and minority women by ginning up issues like abortion, birth control, equal pay and other such phony elements of the so-called “war on women” plank. But success in these efforts may be hard to come by because these groups don’t often vote in large numbers in off-year elections.

Republicans may be enjoying an unusual advantage among women in some key Senate races, but they still face an upward climb to win the support of black voters. There are currently 39 states with no black Republican lawmaker on the state or federal level, and according to the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, of 671 black state legislators nationwide, only 13 are Republican.

Blacks accounted for 13% of the electorate in 2012, and, believe it or not, 37% self-identify as conservative, while 33% self-identify as liberal. Additionally, many black voters have expressed extreme disappointment in Obama. It seems all too clear that Republicans have an opportunity to bring more blacks into the ranks.

Last year, the Republican National Committee began a committed outreach to blacks, hoping to build a base of support in a non-election year rather than repeat the mistake of waiting until a few months before the election. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus made inroads, but there’s a long way to go. There are 17 black Republicans running for Congress this year, but only Utah’s Mia Love is likely to win.

Whatever successes Republicans can count in November, they and the country will be facing an executive onslaught from Obama that will test the very fabric of the Constitution.

The president has shifted a number of executive actions and decisions until after the midterm elections to try to limit the electoral damage for his party. But the scope and breadth of his plans are meant to do nothing less than relegate a Republican-led Congress to the back burner while he continues his plan to fundamentally transform America. Just to name a few, the nomination of Eric Holder’s replacement, amnesty for millions of illegal immigrants, new EPA regulations that will cripple the energy industry, and a steep increase in health insurance rates all silently wait around the corner from Nov. 4.