Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has compared President Barack Obama to a trapped Chilean miner.
In a speech to supporters in Las Vegas on Sunday night, Reid said that when Obama replaced George W. Bush in the White House he found himself in a "hole so deep that he couldn't see the outside world.
"It was like the Chilean miners, but he, being the man he is, rolled up his sleeves and said 'I am going to get us out of this hole,'" Reid said at an "Early Vote GOTV" event.
At a Democratic rally in Boston on Saturday, Obama acknowledged Democrats in general were in a hole, heading up to the mid-term elections.
"There is no doubt that this is a difficult election," he told the crowd of 10,000. "That's because we've been through an incredibly difficult time as a nation."
He added that the Republicans appeared to believe they could "ride people's anger and frustration all the way to the ballot box."
Minimize the damageWith early voting under way in many states, Democrats are trying to minimize the damage by concentrating their resources on a dwindling number of races.
Reid was joined Sunday by South Carolina House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, who told the audience not worry about outspending the Republicans.
"Let's outvote them, that's what we will do, because when you walk into that booth your vote is equal to the wealthiest person in the United States of America," he said.
Taking a swipe at the Tea Party movement, Clyburn said: "We've got just as much reason to be angry as they have got, we are angry."
C lyburn went on criticize Bush and the Republicans for taking a budget surplus and turning it into a record deficit.
"We know what it is to see long odds, but by we have never been discouraged by long odds before and we won't be discouraged this time, we are going to go to the polls in big numbers, you are going to win in Nevada and South Carolina and all across the country," Clyburn told the crowd.