America this weekend, Republican candidates are falling further behind Democratic rivals, according to the new NEWSWEEK poll. While the GOP has lagged behind Democrats throughout the campaign season, the trend in the past month—when NEWSWEEK conducted four polls in five weeks—had suggested the Republicans were building momentum in the homestretch.

No more. The new poll finds support for Republicans (and for President Bush) receding. For example, 53 percent of Americans want the Democrats to win enough seats to take control of one or both houses of Congress in the midterm elections on Tuesday. Those results are close to early October levels, while less than a third of Americans (32 percent) want Republicans to retain control. If the elections were held today, 54 percent of likely voters say they would support the Democratic candidate in their district versus 38 percent who would vote for the Republican-a 16-point edge for the Democrats.

Despite round-the-clock coverage of John Kerry’s Iraq gaffe this week and non-stop rallies in which the President paints Democrats as weak-on-terror tax lovers, the political momentum has returned to the Democrats. Maybe that’s because nearly a third of registered voters (32 percent) now say Iraq is the most important issue in deciding their vote. The economy comes in second at 19 percent. And just 12 percent say terrorism, the Republican trump card in the last three elections, is their most important issue. In fact, as millions of Americans fill in their employers’ health-care selection forms for next year, terrorism is statistically tied with health care at 11 percent.

Meanwhile, the President’s approval has fallen back to 35 percent, after a slow but steady rise from 33 percent at the beginning of October to 37 percent in the NEWSWEEK poll last week.

The good news for Republicans is that their voters are coming home; 90 percent of likely Republican voters say they would vote for the GOP’s candidate if the elections were held today, not far behind the 95 percent of Democrats who back their party’s nominee. But independents say they would vote for the Democrat over the Republican in their district nearly 2 to 1 (26 percent versus 51 percent.)

And the President’s campaign stops this weekend suggest that the GOP has given up on reaching beyond its base and that the strategy now is focused on getting supporters to the polls come Election Day. Most of Bush’s stops are in the reddest of the red states: Kansas, Montana, Texas. Compare that to the 2002 midterm campaign, when the president was fishing for independent and conservative Democrats in such swing states as Florida, Minnesota and Illinois as well. (Holly Bailey and Richard Wolffe report in their online column, The Oval, this week that administration officials say “they are keeping Bush’s schedule flexible to aid any last-minute political maneuvering.”)

But with only 29 percent of Americans saying they’re satisfied with the direction of the country—and 64 percent saying they’re not—the President’s territory to maneuver is small.

Expect to hear lots in the news and on the Web during the next few days about the GOP’s “72-hour campaign,” the party’s hyper-organized, multimillion-dollar get-out-the-vote effort that uses mailing lists, consumer marketing information and high-tech data crunching to find Republicans and roust them to the polls. But with Democrats making their own effort, Republican turnout may not be enough to turn back the tide.