CEDAR CREEK, Texas – Buoyed by a pair of Nov. 3 gubernatorial victories and signs of increasing voter unease toward Democratic-controlled Washington, top Republicans expressed optimism Thursday that their party was poised to make significant gains in 2010.

After two successive election cycles that left their activists and donors demoralized, the Republican governors gathered here offered the sort of upbeat rhetoric about GOP prospects that has been largely absent since President George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election.

While heaping praise on what they said were issued-oriented campaigns from their two new governors-elect, New Jersey’s Chris Christie and Virginia’s Bob McDonnell, Republicans said their comeback was being ushered in by a series of policy excesses by President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress...