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Dante Chinni writesPolitics Countsevery Friday. Mr. Chinni is the director of theAmerican Communities Project at American University, which examines different types of communities across the U.S.

Democrats have been talking a lot about women and equality lately. This week President Barack Obama brought equal-pay-for-women advocate Lilly Ledbetter back to the White House to in honor of Equal Pay Day. And in the Senate Democrats attempted to bring the Paycheck Fairness Act to the floor and were unable to get the votes needed to move forward.

A big part of all this female outreach is the fact that women, particularly younger women, are essential to the Democrats chances of staving off a particularly brutal midterm election this fall. The March Wall Street Journal/ NBC News poll reveals how important women could be for the party in the fall.

Women 18 to 49 years old still report that they have positive feelings for Mr. Obama by 10 percentage points 46% positive versus 36% negative. Younger and older men and women older than 50, all report negative feelings toward the president.

And women 18-to-49 still say they would favor a Democrat-controlled congress this fall by a large margin, 52% Democrat-controlled to 36% Republican-controlled. Women older than 50 favor Democrats, but by less 50% to 41%. Meanwhile, men over and under 50 say they would favor Republican control.

If the goal is to drive up turnout among women, particularly women younger than 50, and turn that polling advantage into a vote advantage, whats the prognosis for the Democrats? Could women be the buffer some analysts suggest they could?

There are a few things to consider.

First, as good as the numbers with women look for Democrats, they actually looked better in the March 2010 as you can see in the above chart. Then, women on both sides of 50 had positive feelings about Mr. Obama, and they more strongly favored a Democrat-controlled congress. And Democrats have no desire to repeat the 2010 results.

Second, while we often think of the split between men and women as a 50/50 divide, it isnt.Nationally, the voting age population, 18 or older, leans toward women it is 51.4% female and 48.5% male. Among those 18 to 49 years old, men hold a slight edge, 28.6% to 28.4%.

Those are national averages, though, when you look at individual states and states with Senate races in 2014, the numbers look different. And those differences could be meaningful in the fall in some close Senate races.

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Politics Counts: If Democrats Motivate Women Voters, Then What?