When the Republicans start spending money in Idaho, you know they have a problem. Bar Utah it is about the most loyal Republican state you can find. Yet over the last 10 days the erosion of support for the GOP has been so pervasive that the issue now appears to be not whether they will lose the House but whether they will lose it by such a huge margin that Democratic moderates no longer hold sway.

The possibility of a 1997-style Labour landslide is now very real. Having given up on many of the districts that were once toss-ups, Republicans now seem determined just to staunch the bleeding by building a firewall around those districts once deemed safe. Meanwhile the Democratic campaign committee is targeting those very districts.

But for now it remains a remote possibility. Democrats are catching up with fundraising but the Republicans are still way ahead. And the GOP has a far superior organisational machine as well. Add the unreliability of voting machines and new voter laws into the mix and 7 November could be a very long night.

But the likelihood that it could be like the UK in 1992, when an apparently certain Labour victory ended in narrow defeat, is now slim. The Democrats should win. The issue is by how much. And what will they do with power, if anything, if they finally get their hands back on it.