Top Democrats are willing to concede that the 2010 midterm election isn’t going to be a picnic. It’s been years since the party has faced a landscape this tough, and they know it. But lose the House majority? Please.

As Democratic leaders see things, the economic situation is going to look a lot more promising in the fall than it does right now. And once you factor in the deeply tainted Republican brand and drill down and look at the 435-seat map on a district-by-district basis, the chances of waking up Nov. 3 to a Republican majority in the House are virtually nil.

“We’ve been saying this would be a tough election year, but it’s a hallucination for Republican leaders to think they’ll take back the House — this is not 1994 déjà vu,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen told POLITICO. “They have to persuade the American people to hand them over the keys, to the same folks who drove the economy into the ditch and now run away from the scene of the accident. All the proposals, the same proposals that got us into the economic mess we’re in.”

While party strategists are, at least privately, steeling for moderate-to-heavy losses in 2010, the range is nowhere near the 40 seats necessary for the GOP to return to power in the House. And that’s an assessment that many nonpartisan analysts seem to share — not to mention Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, who recently conceded the same.

When asked last week if GOP will retake the House, Steele responded: “Not this year.”

What follows is the Democratic case for how and why they’ll hold the House (The accompanying story explains why Republicans think otherwise.)

The public hates the GOP

As grim as some of the polling data appears to be, Democrats can take solace in the fact that voters actually dislike Republicans even more. The party’s image is in the dumps, surveys show voters have no idea who leads or speaks for the party, and the GOP is showing few signs that it’s clawing back the voter registration gains Democrats have built in state after state in recent years.

“Elections come down to choices, and the Republican brand is at an all-time low in the polls,” said Van Hollen. “The American people reject Republican leadership, and the Republicans have become a small-tent party. There are two things they’ve got going on — American people don’t trust them, and even some of their supporters don’t have trust in their leadership.”

Given the disrepair of the Republican brand, it’s not entirely clear that the party will be able to capture the anger and frustration that exists in the electorate. Consider this data point from a recent Rasmussen Reports poll: the “Tea Party” outpolls the Republican Party on the generic congressional ballot, 23 percent to 18 percent. Democrats, meanwhile, outpaced them both with 36 percent.

Money matters

Forget the GOP cheerleading for a moment. A House majority costs money to acquire and maintain, and the GOP has none. Democrats, meanwhile, are flush.

The National Republican Congressional Committee ended November with just $4.3 million in the bank, and still holds $2 million in debt from last year. That’s enough to fund about a handful of races, at best. If the party’s financial fortunes don’t turn around quickly, there’s a real chance that even some of the top recruits will be left to fend for themselves without outside support. By contrast, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee outraised the NRCC this year by more than $18 million — and is currently sitting on a $15.3 million nest egg, with $2.6 million owed.

“If you take the Republican numbers on how many recruits they have ... and divide it with the amount of cash on hand, they don’t have the funds to compete in these districts,” said Van Hollen. “It’s going to be a wake-up call to some of these candidates when they see the people urging them on don’t have the resources.”

The financial disparity means the NRCC will be dependent on the RNC — which it has relied upon for reinforcement in the past — but there’s no guarantee the RNC will have the cash to dispense, or that House races will be a priority in a year when the GOP also has significant opportunities in Senate and governor’s races.

All of this means the NRCC will probably have to rely on outside conservative third-party groups to lend a hand. And, well, sometimes they can be a little off-message, which won’t be helpful with independent voters.

The GOP civil war

Sure, the Democratic base seems a bit dispirited at the moment. November turnout is a concern. But that’s nothing compared with what’s happening on the right. The GOP is at war with itself, from Florida to California and lots of other places in between.

Remember the New York 23 special election? That didn’t turn out so well for the GOP. There’s lots more where that came from. According to Democratic estimates, there are anywhere from a dozen to as many as 50 GOP primaries where a conservative grass-roots/tea party candidate is vying with a Republican incumbent or candidate.

Not much good can come of that. It will force candidates to the right — jeopardizing their general election chances in many districts — and raises the prospect of numerous bloodied Republican nominees limping out of the primary season.

Do the math

Republicans simply cannot hit the magic number of 40 seats without a surge in Democratic retirements. And so far, the number of retirements is not at alarming levels. In the 1994 GOP avalanche, more than one-third of the seats Democrats lost — 22 of 56 — were open seats created by retirements. Only 34 members lost outright, and at least 10 were still catching up from the earlier 1992 redistricting.

In total, 31 House Democrats announced their retirement in 1994. This year? So far, only 10 Democrats, which is not only below the historic norm, but also below the overall number of Republicans — 13, to be exact — who aren’t seeking reelection. And there probably aren’t that many more Democratic retirements to come. Van Hollen has been aggressive in reaching out to possible retirees and has received commitments from most of those who represent the seats most at risk that they’re running for another term.

Democrats will win on the economy