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Republicans have a significant lead over Democrats among likely voters in Gallup's generic ballot poll released Monday, signaling that the party is poised to make large gains in the midterm elections.

Gallup's first generic ballot estimate of likely voters showed Republicans leading Democrats 53-40 percent in a high turnout scenario and 56-38 percent in a low turnout scenario.

{mosads}Over the last few weeks, Gallup's generic ballot polls have shown both parties statistically tied in the key bellwether o! f congressional elections. But those results were from surveys of registered voters instead of the narrower group of voters likely to cast ballots on Election Day in November.

Among registered voters, the midterm outlook is still close: Republicans lead Democrats 46-43 percent. 

The poll comes one day after the White House claimed Democrats have been making up ground on Republicans in voter enthusiasm. President Obama appeared at two large rallies with young voters this week and Democrats had pointed to the narrowing gap in the generic ballot poll of registered voters.

Gallup's poll released last week showed Republicans leading Democrats in enthusiastic voters by 20-perce! nt. 

The polling firm billed its results as a strong si! gn that Republicans could take the majority in the House, but warned that races often tighten as Election Day nears.

"At this point, four weeks remain until Election Day, and given the already-high levels of Republican enthusiasm, it is possible that Democrats could have relatively greater gains among likely voters over the next month," their pollsters wrote. "This history suggests that the likely voter model results at this point should be viewed as describing the current state of affairs, but not as predictive of the final party vote shares on Nov. 2."

The poll was taken between Sept. 23-26 and Sept. 30-Oct. 3. Gallup surveyed 1,882 likely voter and the margin of error is 3 percentage points.