Americans are growing more pessimistic about the economy and the war in Afghanistan, and are losing faith that Democrats have better solutions than Republicans, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. 
 
 Underpinning the gloom: Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the economy has yet to hit bottom, a sharply higher percentage than the 53% who felt that way in January. 
 
 The sour national mood appears all-encompassing and is dragging down ratings for the GOP too, suggesting voters above all are disenchanted with the political establishment in Washington. Just 24% express positive feelings about the Republican Party, a new low in the 21-year history of the Journal's survey. Democrats are only slightly more popular, but also near an all-time low. 
 
 A new WSJ/NBC News poll found that Americans are becoming grimmer about the economy with nearly two-thirds believing that the economy has yet to hit bottom. Peter Wallsten and David Weidner discuss. Also, Scott McCartney finds that some airlines are more fuel efficient than others, and others are gas guzzlers. 
 
 The results likely foreshadow a poor showing in November's mid-term for Democrats, whose leaders had hoped the public would grow more optimistic about the economy and, as a result, more supportive of the party agenda. Now, despite the weak Republican numbers, the survey shows frustrated voters on the left are less interested than impassioned voters on the right to in the election. 
 
 "Even with Republicans having low numbers, they are the opposition party and are going to benefit from people saying, 'We're ticked off and we want a change,"' said Republican pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted the survey with Democratic pollster Peter Hart. "The way you vote your discontent is to say you're going to vote Republican." 
 
 Mr. Hart said the 2010 contest is being pulled by the sentiment associated with the JetBlue flight attendant who fled his plane via the emergency chute after an altercation with a passenger. Calling it the "JetBlue election," Mr. Hart said: "Everyone's hurling invective and they're all taking the emergency exit." 
 
 As in recent polls, Americans are split on President Barack Obama's job performance, with 47% approving and 48% disapproving. But a majority disapproves of his performance on the economy. And six in 10, including 83% of independents and a quarter of Democrats, say they are only somewhat or not at all confident that Mr. Obama has the right policies to improve it. 
 
 Pulse of the Poll View Interactive See results from The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. Following the Polls View Interactive Pick your own answers to some survey questions and see how you line up with the poll respondents. 
 
 The survey suggests that Democrats should expect little if any appreciation from voters for legislative achievements such as overhauling the health care and financial systems. Six in 10 Americans rated Congress' performance this year as below average or one of the worst. And the economy is dominating voters' worries. Among those who believe the economy will get worse over the next year, 67% want a GOP-led Congress. 
 
 "Several months ago I was very hopeful" said Fort Worth, Texas, public-schools administrator Susan Stitt, 63 years old, an independent who leans Republican. "But in May or so, about three months ago, I just started hearing more and more little things on the news that would chip away at my confidence." 
 
 Denis Goulet, 59 years old, a contract manager for Verizon from Calvert County, Md., and a Democratic-leaning independent, said the economy made him "feel like Charlie Brown kicking the football." 
 
 "Every time things start looking better, they start looking bad again" he said. Mr. Goulet said he has always voted for Democrats, but doesn't know how to vote this year. "I have gotten as wrapped up as anyone else just trying to stay afloat." 
 
 View Full Image AFP/Getty Images The poll finds that 68% of Americans now feel less confident the war in Afghanistan will come to a successful conclusion. Above, U.S. soldiers gather after disembarking from a base in Kandahar. 
 
 On the Afghanistan war, which had been an area of strength for the president since he revamped his military strategy, 68% of Americans now feel less confident the war will come to a successful conclusion. Just 44% approve of the president's job on Afghanistan, down from a majority who approved in March, the last time the poll addressed the topic. 
 
 Voters appear evenly split on which party they hope will control Congress after November. But Republicans retain an advantage among those more likely to turn out. Among those most interested in the election, half favor GOP control and 39% support the Democrats. One positive movement for Democrats: That 11-point gap is down from 21 points in June. 
 
 Democrats and the president retain strong approval among minorities. But they are losing some groups that helped the party take control of Congress in 2006, particularly working-class whites. Among whites with less than a college education—a group the two parties split in the most-recent midterms—the GOP has a 16-point advantage, 49% to 33%, when voters were asked which party they wanted to control Congress. 
 
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 Republicans, meantime, are gaining ground on a number of issues that have traditionally been advantages for Democrats. More Americans now think the GOP would do a better job on the economy—an advantage the party last held briefly in 2004 but has not enjoyed consistently since the mid-1990s. On one of the Democrats' core issues, Social Security, just 30% now think the party would do a better job than the GOP, compared to 26% who favor the Republicans. That margin was 28 points in 2006. 
 
 "The Republicans don't have a message as to why people should vote for them, but it's pretty clear why you shouldn't vote for the Democrats," said poll respondent Tim Krsak, 33, a lawyer from Indianapolis and independent who has been unemployed since January. "So by default, you have to vote for the other guy." 
 
 Write to Peter Wallsten at peter.wallsten@wsj.com ||||| Republicans are heading into the general election phase of the midterm campaign backed by two powerful currents: the highest proportion of voters in two decades say it is time for their own member of Congress to be replaced, and Americans are expressing widespread dissatisfaction with President Obama ’s leadership. 
 
 But the latest New York Times/CBS News poll also finds that while voters rate the performance of Democrats negatively, they view Republicans as even worse, providing a potential opening for Democrats to make a last-ditch case for keeping their hold on power. 
 
 The poll represents a snapshot of the country’s political mood as the campaign pivots from primary contests that have revealed deep divisions among Republicans into the general election, where the parties deliver their competing arguments to a wider audience. 
 
 The findings suggest that there are opportunities and vulnerabilities for both parties as they proceed into the final seven weeks of the campaign. 
 
 A case for Republicans: Voters are remarkably open to change, even if they are not sure where Republicans will lead them. Most Americans, including one-third of those in the coalition that elected Mr. Obama, now say he does not have a clear plan to solve the nation’s problems or create jobs. Democrats remain highly vulnerable on the economy. 
 
 A case for Democrats: They are seen as having better ideas for solving the country’s problems. The public steadfastly supports the president’s proposal to let tax cuts expire for the wealthiest Americans. And far more people still blame Wall Street and the Bush administration than blame Mr. Obama for the country’s economic problems. 
 
 Voters have a darker view of Congressional Republicans than of Democrats, with 63 percent disapproving of Democrats and 73 percent disapproving of Republicans. But with less than two months remaining until Election Day, there are few signs that Democrats have made gains persuading Americans that they should keep control of Congress. 
 
 “I really think we need to get some new blood in there,” said Kathy Beckman, 44, an optometrist from Lodi, Calif., who spoke in an interview after participating in the poll. “Get them all out.” 
 
 The mood of the country is similar in many respects to the fall of 1994, when Republicans swept control of Congress. There is an overall low Congressional approval, large numbers of Americans who believe the country is on the wrong track and soaring discontent among voters with their own representative. 
 
 It is that particular finding in the poll that underscores the true depths of the disgruntlement among the public and is an ominous sign for Democrats, who have a 39-seat majority in the House and a 10-seat majority in the Senate. 
 
 In many election cycles, voters readily acknowledge that they are dissatisfied with government or Congress in general, but they tend to have a stronger connection toward their own representative. That is not the case this year, with 55 percent of voters saying it is time for new leadership and only 34 percent saying their lawmaker deserves re-election. It is a historic high for a question asked in each midterm election year since 1990. 
 
 The economic climate is also worse this year, with 8 in 10 Americans rating the economy negatively and 4 in 10 saying that their family’s financial situation is worse than it was two years ago. In September 1994, two months before Democrats lost their majorities in the House and Senate, more than half of people said the condition of the national economy was good. 
 
 The economy and jobs are increasingly and overwhelmingly cited by Americans as the most important problems facing the country, while the federal budget deficit barely registers as a topic of concern when survey respondents were asked to volunteer their worries. 
 
 The national telephone poll was conducted Friday through Tuesday, the day that primary contests unfolded in seven states. The survey included 990 adults, of whom 881 were registered voters. The poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points. 
 
 Voters do not perceive Republicans as having better ideas and disagree with them on the biggest economic issue of the campaign — whether to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy — a sign the party has no real advantage on key pieces of their agenda, which makes it more necessary to run as a generic alternative to the party in power. 
 
 The Tea Party movement, which showed its strength in Republican primaries in Delaware and New York, has yet to be fully defined for many Americans. Nearly half of voters say they are undecided or have not heard enough about the Tea Party to form an opinion, a sign that offers an opportunity for the movement to define itself to many voters and help shape their views of it before Election Day.
– If Democrats are desperate for signs of hope heading into the midterms, two new polls may be about as good as they're going to get: A New York Times/CBS survey finds that while most people (63%) don't like them, even more (73%) don't like Republicans. The stat provides "a potential opening for Democrats to make a last-ditch case for keeping their hold on power," write Jeff Zeleny and Megan Thee-Brenan. Also good for Dems: Most people still blame George W. Bush and Wall Street for the economic mess, not President Obama. Still, voters are clearly angry—the highest percentage in 20 years say it's time for their own congressman to go—and most don't think Obama has the right answers. A Politico poll, meanwhile, says most voters think the GOP will take over both the House and Senate. But respondents were split at 43-43 when asked whether they would vote for a Democrat or Republican. "This is good news for Democrats and at odds with many other public polls, which have shown Republicans holding a single-digit edge," write Charles Mahtesian and Jim Vandehei. More significantly, Democrats actually hold an edge in key battleground regions of the Midwest and Northeast. For all (or at least more) things Election 2010, click here.