WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) -- Democrats now hold a 13-point advantage over Republicans among U.S. likely voters on the generic congressional ballot, according to a poll released Tuesday.

Fifty-four percent of U.S. likely voters said they support a Democratic congressional candidate in their district, while 41 percent of the polled said they back a Republican candidate, the CNN/SSRS survey found.

This is the widest margin of support for Democrats in a midterm cycle since 2006, when the party held a 21-point lead over Republicans among likely voters, according to CNN.

In 2006 Democrats seized control of the House from Republicans after flipping 31 seats. They currently need to retake 23 seats to take over in November.

The poll also found that 62 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said they were extremely or very enthusiastic to vote, a 7-point increase since September.

Meanwhile, 52 percent Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they were extremely or very enthusiastic about the upcoming midterm elections.

Among women, 63 percent said they would vote for the Democrat and only a third said they would vote for the Republican. Men were more closely divided, but tilted in the opposite direction, with half backing the Republican and 45 percent behind the Democrat.

The survey was conducted between Oct. 4 and 7 among a sample population of 1,009 adults. It had a margin of error of 3.8 percentage points.