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Democrats fighting to retain control of the U.S. Senate know their success could hinge on motivating women supporters to vote in the November election.

To that end, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is teeing up a slate of measures designed to appeal to women voters and to cast Republican candidates as insensitive -- or even hostile -- to them. The effort will ramp up next week with legislation aimed at closing the gender wage gap.

We know that when women vote, we win, said Senator Patty Murray of Washington, a member of the Democratic leadership who led her partys 2012 Senate campaign effort.

Republicans need a net gain of six seats in the midterm election to take the Senate majority, something that analysts say looks increasingly possible -- especially as Democrats are defending 21 seats compared with 15 for Republicans.

Democrats are trying to avoid a repeat of the 2010 midterms, in which Republicans capitalized on sentiment against President Barack Obama and the health-care law passed that year to win control of the House and additional seats in the Senate.

That year, 51 percent of women voters supported a Republican House candidate, the first time that proportion surpassed 50 percent since exit polls began measuring backing for congressional candidates in 1982. Political experts attributed the shift to unusually low turnout among women voters, especially single women.

The 2010 midterms were a sharp departure from 2008 and 2012 when Obama was on the ballot and Democratic candidates benefited from his campaigns voter-mobilization efforts. With women voters nationwide, Democratic House candidates registered a 14-point edge in 2008 and an 11-point advantage four years later, according to exit polls.

Given the importance of womens votes, the Democrats strategy makes perfect sense, said Jennifer Duffy, who tracks Senate races for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington.

There are a lot of women up, there are a number of prominent women candidates, Duffy said, adding that Democrats also need to change the subject from the botched health-care law rollout.

North Carolina Senator Kay Hagan, one of the chambers most vulnerable incumbents on the ballot this year, said a measure strengthening rules that employers show that wage disparity is based on job performance and not gender is certainly an issue that would help get women to the polls.

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Paycheck Issues Top Senate Agenda in Bid for Womens Vote