US Democrats are likely to face trouble in the 2014 midterm Congressional elections due in November, with pundits and political prognosticators projecting that they would lose control of the Senate.

"Democrats are in hot water in 2014," Darrell West, a senior fellow at the Washington-based think tank Brookings Institution, told Xinhua in an interview.

"President (Barack) Obama's popularity has slipped and it is hard to turn out Democratic voters in a midterm election. A number of Democratic seats in the US Senate are in states that lean Republican, so this makes it hard for Democrats to be very optimistic," West said.

Just a year ago, experts warned that Republicans needed to overhaul their party or risk becoming irrelevant, as the party was viewed as leaving out minorities and women in an increasingly multicultural nation. But now the tables have turned, and Democrats are suddenly on the ropes.

Indeed, US political guru and numbers whiz Nate Sliver last week projected that Democrats could lose the Senate. This sparked Democratic ire against the former darling of the party, who had predicted Obama had a 90 percent chance of winning the White House during the last presidential elections.

Many of the Democrats' current problems stem from the botched rollout of Obama's healthcare overhaul, also known as Obamacare.

The Obama administration came under fire after a few million Americans were dropped from their health insurance because their plans did not adhere to new guidelines required by the new law. That occurred despite Obama had repeatedly promised that those who liked their insurance plans could keep them under the new law.

Aside from perceived administration missteps, history also favors Republicans in 2014 elections. Obama and Democrats could fall victim to the so-called "six year itch" -- politically speak for presidents' historically troubled sixth year.

Indeed, the "six-year itch" usually results in a loss of seats for the party in power, experts said, and that magic number this year is six seats for the Republican Party (GOP) to take back the Democratic-controlled Senate.

The phenomenon goes back several decades. In 1966 and 1974, " six-year itch" losses totaled four seats in each of those years, and totaled six seats in the 2006 midterm elections during George W. Bush's second-term presidency. In the 1986 elections, the White House's party lost eight seats and 12 seats in the 1958 elections.

Republicans will make gains in November's elections, the only question is how many new seats it can win, Republican strategist Ford O'Connell told Xinhua. "Could they get more than six (seats)? Yes, they could," he said.

US experts said the best card Democrats can play this year is to continue to emphasize the areas of the economy that are recovering after the worst economic downturn in decades.