WASHINGTON — Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is widely expected to lead House Democrats into battle against the new Trump administration, continuing an extraordinary 14-year run as her party’s leader that includes two terms as speaker.

The San Francisco Democrat, 76, called leadership elections for Thursday and faces no obvious opposition yet, despite disappointing election results Tuesday for her caucus and grumbling that she and her top lieutenants, Steny Hoyer, 77, of Maryland and James Clyburn, 76, of South Carolina are blocking the path of younger members.

Pelosi’s office would not comment about her future role but did nothing to discourage speculation that she would try to keep her job as minority leader. Democrats gained just six of the 30 seats she needed in her longshot bid to regain the speakership post that she held from 2007 to 2011, leaving Democrats at a severe 241 to 194 disadvantage against Republicans.

Still, the results did not appear to weaken Pelosi’s standing among House colleagues. Her allies said her experience leading Democrats in similar circumstances under President George W. Bush would serve them well, and analysts agreed.

“It’s a tough role being minority leader right now,” said UC Berkeley political scientist Eric Schickler. “The role under Trump is going to be to oppose. She’s shown that she’s pretty effective keeping Democrats together in that role.”

The job may not appeal to ambitious younger politicians, Schickler said, because it doesn’t provide a platform “where you’re going to build a national following that positions you to run for president, because you’re mostly there opposing stuff,” he said. “Democrats do need a new generation of leaders, but it’s not clear to me that they need those people in positions like minority leader where Pelosi is.”

Analysts expect the next chance for Democrats to regain the House majority won’t arrive until 2022, leaving Pelosi, who will be 82, almost no shot at regaining it.

The 2020 census by then will have allowed a reapportionment of House seats, giving Democrats a chance to reverse the structural advantage Republicans gained after the last census in 2010, when districts were gerrymandered to protect their incumbents. That protection has prevented Democrats from gaining seats despite having more votes cast in their favor nationally than for Republican candidates. In 2012, for example, Democratic House candidates won 50.59 percent of the vote, beating Republicans by 1.17 million votes, but wound up with just 46.21 percent of House seats.

Democrats said the 2018 midterm elections, two years into a Trump presidency, may provide an earlier opening. Parties holding the White House almost inevitably lose seats in midterm elections. Democrats would have to net 24 seats to retake the House in 2018. That’s a big hurdle, but much will depend on how Trump’s first two years play out.

Ruling party losses during midterm elections are “almost a law of American politics,” said Frances Lee, an expert on Congress at the University of Maryland.

A large part of Pelosi’s power lies in her unparallelled fundraising prowess, including the astonishing $100 million she raised for Democrats during the recent campaign. “Nancy has been maybe the most voracious fundraiser for House Democrats in the history of the Congress,” said Stan Collender, a former top House Democratic aide now at MSLGroup Qorvis, a public relations firm.

Pelosi also has the backing of Californians, the largest bloc of House Democrats.

“I will support her if she is up for continuing this fight,” said Rep. Eric Swalwell of Dublin, who was tapped by Pelosi to head a group of young members whom she is grooming for future leadership. “My observation of her leadership in the Bush years when Democrats were in the minority in the House and Senate, and Republicans controlled the White House, was that she was a very effective minority leader.”

Rep. Jared Huffman, another rising young Democrat from San Rafael, said no one blames Pelosi for Democrats’ minority status.

“Whatever disappointment we have from this national election, it wasn’t Nancy Pelosi’s fault,” Huffman said. “She worked her heart out to put us in position to catch the presidential wave if it materialized, and for reasons she could not control and none of us could control, it simply didn’t.”

Unlike the Senate, where minority Democrats have the filibuster, House Democrats have little power. Their singular advantage, which Pelosi strives endlessly to cultivate, is their unity, which Trump’s election only promises to galvanize.

During Bush’s presidency, Pelosi leveraged that unity whenever Republicans splintered, blocking, for example, Bush’s attempt to privatize Social Security.

“When she wants to put her foot down, she’s very, very effective,” said Republican strategist Ford O’Connell.

Still, Pelosi may find herself outgunned on some major issues this time, O’Connell said. “The fact that Republicans control three branches, when it comes to issues like Obamacare and climate change, it’s going to be very, very hard to stop them,” he said.

In the flush of Trump’s victory, Republicans are rallying behind the president-elect, openly awestruck by his victory and wise to his capacity for revenge. House Speaker Paul Ryan plans a bold agenda, including repeal of the Affordable Care Act, Pelosi’s signature achievement as speaker. Ryan has also floated plans to privatize Medicare, the wildly popular health care program for the elderly.

The big unknown is Trump himself.

“We need to see whether it’s going to be campaign Trump or pragmatic, ideologically flexible Trump,” Huffman said. “Even with a Republican majority, it’s going to be virtually impossible for him to deliver the full measure of red meat he has promised to the angry constituency that swept him into office.”

Carolyn Lochhead is The San Francisco Chronicle’s Washington correspondent. Email: clochhead@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @carolynlochhead