New York ? Power in Washington hangs in the balance today as the bitter slugfest for control of Congress comes to a head in a final flurry of polling, rallies and vows of victory.

Republicans took heart in polls showing GOP momentum as key races tightened across the country. They said they were pinning their hopes on their superior turnout machine.

“Republicans are going to turn out,” President Bush told a rally in Florida. “It’s going to be a great victory.”

Democrats said the air felt like 1994, when fed-up voters rose up and cleared out the halls of Congress.

“The demand for change grows and grows and grows, and only the president in his bunker doesn’t seem to realize it,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

“They can’t run anything right,” said former President Clinton, campaigning for Democrats and taunting Republicans about the war in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina.

In a telling sign of the GOP’s fundamental problem, Bush’s rally in Pensacola was overshadowed by news that he is now so politically toxic that the candidate for governor he came to stump for decided to skip the event at the last minute.

Republican Charlie Crist went to a hastily organized rally in Palm Beach instead, drawing a sneer from White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove: “Let’s see how many people show up.”

Republican Senate candidate Rep. Katherine Harris did show up in Pensacola, but Bush’s aides wouldn’t let her on stage with the president.

A Gallup Poll showed interest in the midterm election is unusually high this year across the country, with 50 percent of voters saying they’ve given it “quite a lot” of thought. The last time the number was that high was 1994.

Most analysts predict the Democrats will recapture the House, but that the Senate is just beyond reach.

Schumer, who is in charge of his party’s effort to win the Senate, reminds anyone who will listen that the House has never flipped without the Senate also changing hands.

Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman claimed GOP momentum, crowing over final polls showing Republicans making large gains in generic matchups with Democrats. But the GOP still was behind.