I am beginning to feel something that I haven't felt for a long time in politics: optimism. Cautious optimism, to be sure, but still hoping the future is going to turn positive rather than negative. I say this with exactly four weeks to go until the midterm congressional elections.

Democrats continue to have the wind at their backs. Donald Trump's approval rating just keeps sinking lower and lower. He has no clue what he's doing with his war of choice with Iran, and American consumers are paying the price for his cluelessness in a big way. The Republicans have no answer for any of the biggest concerns voters have, and the energy on the Democratic side is incredible while the Republicans are disillusioned and disenchanted.

At this point, Democrats regaining control over the House of Representatives seems like a done deal. The only question is how big the blue wave will be. Will they flip 10 seats? Or 15... or even 20? Democrats are expanding their battleground map almost daily now, and are taking on Republicans in districts that Trump won by 10 or 15 points. The momentum is clearly on the Democrats' side.

Things are looking brighter and brighter on the Senate side as well. The New York Times just released polls showing Democratic candidates opening up leads in some unexpected states. James Talarico is polling 6 points better than Ken Paxton in Texas (51-45). In Alaska, Mary Peltola is up 7 points over Dan Sullivan (50-43). Sherrod Brown is leading Jon Husted in Ohio by 3 points (49-46) despite an absolute tsunami of money being spent on Husted's behalf. Even the race in Kansas is tied at 45 between Adam Hamilton and Roger Marshall. The Cook Political Report keeps shifting races further to the Democrats' side as well (just today they announced they had shifted Kansas from "Lean Republican" to "Toss Up," North Carolina from "Lean Democrat to "Likely Democrat," and New Hampshire from "Toss Up" to "Lean Democrat. Democrats have to flip enough states to pick up a net gain of four seats, and they're competitive or leading in at least eight GOP-held states (Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, and Alaska) -- and some are even optimistic about other states which should be out of reach (South Carolina, Florida, even Alabama). Democrats have multiple roads to victory in places they normally wouldn't have had a chance in. And the Republicans have already ceded North Carolina to the Democrats (by pulling out all their ad money).

The betting markets are also getting optimistic for Democrats. Polymarket shows people are betting that Democrats will pick up five states in the Senate (North Carolina, Alaska, Texas, Ohio, and Maine). The betting doesn't favor Republicans to pick up a single state. Betting markets don't always predict accurately, but the optimism there can't be ignored.

Of course, I've been so pessimistic for so long now that I have to dampen my enthusiasm with some worries about all this sunny optimism. Because there are things that could happen that lead to massive disappointment on Election Day. What the chances of any of these happening truly are is unknown, but in each case it has to be seen as above zero.

First, the polls could be wrong. They have been before. Polling as a science is going through some very rough changes, and nobody's really sure they've fixed the underlying math. Polling at the state level or at the House district level is always going to be less accurate than nationwide polls (since it's a smaller pool of respondents to draw from), so we could be in for some surprises on Election Day.

Next up: Donald Trump could actually spark enthusiasm with his rallies. This seems pretty far-fetched, since (1) he is not actually on the ballot, and (2) he is increasingly unpopular, even in red states. But Trump is a politician who delights in breaking conventional political science wisdom, which he has regularly managed to do. So perhaps he can fire his base up enough to overcome their dismay at having to pay sky-high prices for gasoline and diesel. Probably not, but it could happen.

Third: money talks. Republicans have an absolute mountain of cash they're going to spend on election ads -- far more than the Democrats do. These ads are already flooding the market, and it's only going to get worse in the final four weeks. It's an open question whether this is going to do them any good or not, since the voters might not care about all the fearmongering after the last two years of Trump. Being outspent is going to be brutal for some Democrats, but it may not matter that much in the end (hopefully).

And it is now October. So a surprise could appear at any time. What would this look like? Well, it wouldn't be a surprise if we could see it coming, would it? A sudden end to the Iran war is the only thing I would even speculate about, but the whole point of an October surprise is that anything can happen in politics -- and if it happens close enough to an election, it can change the outcome.

There's also the question of whether this election will truly be free and fair, or whether Trump will go full-on strongman and direct the military (or federal officers) to start seizing ballots. That's not even the only scary scenario to contemplate. What happens if Democrats sweep the elections -- will Trump graciously accept the outcome? Will the Republicans in Congress manage a smooth transition of power, or will they force a constitutional crisis (by, say, refusing to seat new Democratic members in January)? There are a lot of bad things that could happen between now and when the new Congress convenes in January -- hopefully none of which will actually happen (but you never know, with Trump).

Even with all those doom-and-gloom caveats, though, I remain cautiously optimistic. This year's election will be the first chance the voters get to express their disapproval of what Donald Trump and his GOP minions have been doing, and tens of millions of them are downright eager to do so.

I remain realistic, too. Even if the Democrats do romp in the elections and take both houses of Congress, Donald Trump is still going to be president for two more years. We're going to see some major standoffs between the two branches of government in that time, obviously. But that will be far better than what we've had for the past two years, where Congress mostly has just rolled over and done what Trump wanted them to do.

There's a sense of enthusiasm right now on the Democratic side. This may wind up working against them if they do win, because expectations will be high for them to clean up Trump's messes -- not all of which they'll be able to do right away. But this enthusiasm is hard to ignore. Right now, my gut is optimistically telling me that Democrats will indeed win the House and seem to have better-than-even odds at picking up the Senate too. And that's a pretty good place to be, four weeks out.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant