Pelosi predicts Dems 'will win' the House, as Colbert pleads not to jinx it

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Why is there no heir apparent to Nancy Pelosi?

Debate grows over who should be House speaker if Democrats take back the House.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi made yet another bold prediction in the days leading up to the midterm elections—Democrats “will win” the House.

Pelosi, D-Calif., who is hoping to take back the gavel and assume her former position as House speaker, has projected confidence for months about her party's chances of regaining the majority. But in her latest comments, she predicted victory, with no caveats, while suggesting Democrats could even take the Senate -- though recent polling still reflects a GOP advantage in the upper chamber.

“Let me say this. Up until today, I would’ve said, ‘If the election were held today, we would win,’” Pelosi said on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” Tuesday. “What now I’m saying is, ‘We will win.’”

Colbert responded by warning her not to jinx the Democrats’ prospects.

“Do you want to say that on Hillary’s fireworks barge that she canceled?” Colbert said, referring to Hillary Clinton’s planned fireworks for the night of her expected 2016 presidential victory. “Please don’t say that.”

He added, joking: “And how long are the curtains that you’re measuring right now?”

Pelosi defended her prediction, saying “if everyone votes, we’ll have even a bigger victory.”

“Democrats will carry the House. If we have a bigger victory, the Senate, governorships,” she said. “It’s going to be a great night for America.”

Pelosi has long predicted victory on Nov. 6, despite recent warnings that the party may be overconfident.

“People ask me all over the country, ‘Is it a wave, or is it a tsunami?’” Pelosi said earlier this month, referring to her “blue wave” predictions. “... I don’t know how much water would be involved, but we would win the majority. Wave or tsunami, we’ll see.”

Pelosi’s confidence, though, is not shared by all Democratic insiders, some of whom who are still stinging from President Trump’s upset victory over Clinton in 2016.

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“Election Day will either prove to me I have PTSD or show I’ve been living déjà vu,” former Clinton spokesman Jesse Ferguson told McClatchy about the upcoming elections. “I just don’t know which yet.”

Democrats need to gain 23 seats in order to take back the majority from the GOP.

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Pelosi, meanwhile, seems to be making an early effort to assuage concerns from younger rank-and-file Democrats about her future leadership, saying she could commit to an abbreviated “transitional” term as speaker.

“I see myself as a transitional figure,” Pelosi told The Los Angeles Times last week. “I have things to do. Books to write, places to go, grandchildren, first and foremost, to love.”

Pelosi has yet to provide details on when this “transitional” speakership would expire but has said she would want to stay through 2020.

“There has to be a transition at some point in all of this,” Pelosi said last week. “I’m not going to make myself a lame duck.”

Fox News' Andrew O'Reilly contributed to this report.