Erin Kelly

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump's alienation of women, minorities, well-educated suburbanites and millennials could help Democrats pick up a larger-than-expected number of House seats this year, but they are still unlikely to seize the majority from Republicans, analysts predict.

To gain control of the House, Democrats would have to win 30 of the 31 Republican-held House seats that are considered at-risk without losing a single seat of their own, said David Wasserman, who analyzes House races for the non-partisan Cook Political Report.

"It's a long shot, but it's not impossible," said Wasserman, who predicts that Democrats are likely to gain up to 15 seats but adds that the election remains volatile and his estimate could change.

The fact that a Democratic takeover is no longer being dismissed by analysts as completely absurd shows just how unpredictable this election season has become, thanks in large part to the emergence of Trump as the Republican presidential front-runner.

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"A year ago, if you had asked me what would it take to put the House in play, I'd have said it would take Republicans nominating someone who frequently insulted women, immigrants, religious minorities and ignored basic facts. And we're there," said Wasserman. "The election has become a referendum on Donald Trump instead of Barack Obama."

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — the Democrats' House campaign operation — is not asserting at this point that Democrats will take over the House. But the party clearly believes the divisiveness of Trump's campaign has opened up new opportunities for its candidates, especially in suburban districts with well-educated voters and in districts where the percentage of Latino voters is in double digits. National polls have shown that about 80% of Latino voters have an unfavorable view of Trump, as do about 70% of Republicans with college degrees.

Among the districts where Democrats believe they may be able to take advantage of those demographics: Virginia's 10th Congressional District, which is represented by Republican Barbara Comstock and is made up of high-income, highly educated suburban residents and has a growing Hispanic and Asian population; and Pennsylvania's 8th Congressional District, an open seat that includes affluent suburbs north of Philadelphia.

"The political environment is as unpredictable as Trump's explosive rhetoric, but one thing is for sure: House Democratic candidates are ready to seize on the electoral winds at their back, and win big in November," said Meredith Kelly, national press secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

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But a spokeswoman for the National Republican Congressional Committee said it is too little, too late for Democrats. Democrats have run out of time to field competitive candidates in many states, where the filing deadline to run for Congress has closed, said NRCC Communications Director Katie Martin.

"House Democrats' first issue is that they've had recruitment failures across the country," Martin said. "In very competitive races, if they do have a candidate, they are very weak candidates. They have a math problem and they having a filing problem when it comes to deadlines, which makes them taking back the House impossible."

She said Republican incumbents running for the House are not focusing on Trump.

"Our members are very focused on working for their districts, regardless of what's happening anywhere else," Martin said. "I think when you open up any local newspapers in our members' districts back home, you're going to read great headlines about what they're accomplishing for their communities."

Most Republican candidates are doing their best to avoid talking about Trump, trying instead to focus on local issues, said Eric Herzik, chairman of the political science department at the University of Nevada, Reno.

"A month ago, the safe line for Republican congressional candidates was, 'I'll back the Republican nominee, whomever that is,' " Herzik said. "Now that it looks like it's going to be Trump or Cruz, the safe line is, 'We still have primary states to go through, we have to see how this plays out, let the people speak.' The other safe thing for them to do is avoid talking about what's going on in the Republican Party and say, 'We've got to save the nation from Hillary Clinton.' "

But some GOP candidates in close elections have decided to denounce Trump. Republican Reps. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., and Bob Dold, R-Ill., both running in Democratic-leaning districts, have said they will never support Trump. Curbelo has called Trump "insulting and offensive" and Dold has denounced him for "disgusting and offensive" comments about women, Muslims, and Hispanics.

Only seven of the 246 Republicans in the House have endorsed Trump.

Part of the problem for GOP congressional candidates is that Americans are increasingly voting party-line, making it unlikely that they would vote for Clinton for president and a Republican for Congress at the same time, said Jack Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College in California.

"That puts the Republican majority in jeopardy, especially in suburban districts, where Trump is about as popular as head lice," Pitney said. "Trump is definitely going to cause damage for Republicans. It may not be quite enough to cost them control of the House, but he is going to make the party bleed. The only question is how much."