Don't count the Democrats out yet: Bill Clinton

Former president Bill Clinton on Tuesday said Democrats could make surprise gains in next week's congressional elections even as as many predict a Republican comeback in the crucial mid-term vote.

"I think it will be a great mistake to count us out. Reports of our demise have been exaggerated," Clinton told the "ABC World News" television program.

"If we want it bad enough to go out there and work for it, I think we'll get it," Clinton said in Chicago, where he campaigned on behalf of Democratic Senate candidate Alexi Giannoulias and several other Democratic candidates.

"This is the largest number of close races I've ever seen across America. I've never seen it like this."

Clinton, a Democrat who was president from 1993 to 2001, said he can relate to President Barack Obama's difficulty in getting the message out about the benefits of some of the sweeping reforms and major policies he has enacted.

"Anybody who has ever been there will tell you how hard it is to get a fact-based message out," he said.

"It's what happened to me in '94. When you get in, you are wanting to do things... There's almost an inverse relationship in how much you accomplish and what people know about it."

In 1994 - during which Clinton's first mid-term election was held - Republicans swamped Democrats in a historic rout, a feat they hope to repeat in an election that will shape the fate of the president's agenda.

But despite retaking Congress in 1994, Republicans saw Clinton coast to reelection two years later.

Historically, a sitting US president's party loses seats in his first mid-term elections, though such contests have not been good predictors of chances for a second term.

Democrats are hoping their get-out-the-vote efforts will make the difference in scores of nail-biter races as voters head to the polls on November 2, and help contain a Republican tide that was also expected to give the president's opponents control of key governorships.