By JONATHAN WEISMAN

WASHINGTON -- Slumping in the polls and struggling to pass climate and financial legislation, President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders are counting on an historic health care victory to buoy their electoral prospects in 2010.

But Republicans argued Sunday that the issue is breaking their way, and liberal infighting indicates the party leadership has to win back its base along with the larger electorate.

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has been telling Democrats a win on the health issue will reverse the slide in public opinion, just as passage of another controversial proposal, the North American Free Trade Agreement, lifted President Bill Clinton in the polls.

Associated Press

Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, the last Democratic holdout, walks outside the Capitol on Saturday, following his agreement to support health-care legislation.

The apparent success by Senate Democrats this weekend in securing the necessary votes to pass a sweeping overhaul of health care before Christmas will offset setbacks on climate change and financial industry regulation, Democrats say.

"The reality, I think, will trump poll numbers in the dead of winter as this debate is going on," White House senior adviser David Axelrod said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

"We're governing through difficult times," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "I think we're going to be in a better place" when the midterm elections arrive.

Republicans say public opinion is on their side.

"If Democrats want to run on this, then we invite them to go ahead and do so. The Obama-Pelosi agenda continues to feed into the emerging 2010 narrative that this is a Congress that spends too much, taxes too much and borrows too much," Ken Spain, communications director of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Sunday.

Last week's Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll not only showed a substantial majority opposed to the plan, but for the first time, it showed a plurality favoring the status quo over passage.

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