Now that even Sen. Harry Reid’s fellow Democrats are getting fed up with the party’s budget delays, the senator is trying to shift anger back to the GOP by ramping up his denunciations of the Republican Medicare plan on the Senate floor.

“We know Republicans have put together a budget that destroys Medicare,” said Reid on Tuesday. “It appears clear they would rather balance the budget on the backs of seniors.”

Today Reid continued his attacks, saying that the Republican plan is to “end Medicare, slash Medicaid and put millions of seniors at risk.”

Part of Reid’s strategy is to distract from Democratic budget delays, but his assaults may end up forcing the GOP into a more defensive position on Medicare. Despite Democratic claims that Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan is politically toxic, a 45 percent plurality of Americans still remain undecided on the issue, according to the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll released today. That presents a big opening for Republicans to defend the Ryan plan, but it’s a two-way street: the numbers indicate that a large number of Americans could also be susceptible to Democratic criticism of the proposal.

However, Democrats may be wrong if they’re counting on the Medicare issue to easily sway voters in their direction. The same poll found that 38 percent are more likely to vote for a candidate who supports Ryan’s Medicare reform, while virtually the same number — 37 percent — are less likely to vote for that candidate. Further, 18% say it won’t make a difference in determining their vote, and 7% are undecided about whether it will make a difference.

That doesn’t mean Republicans should be overly-confident either. Reid’s attacks could present a significant challenge for the GOP, as it attempts to simultaneously defend its Medicare proposals while still keeping the focus on the Democrats’ failure to produce a budget.