Notice the slick expectations-management on the part of NRCC bigwig Tom Davis:

“If you are a Democrat, you have to like the atmosphere,” said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), a top campaign strategist for the GOP. Davis said Republicans could lose as many as 30 seats if conditions worsen.

As Davis must know, conditions would have to “worsen” quite a bit to make that prediction plausible; as of now a loss of around 25 seats looks like the absolute worst-case scenario. But no matter how bad the GOP is doing, reporters are always eager to believe it’s doing even worse, so it was no problem getting the Post to play up a possible 30-seat loss. Now, even in the face of an election night disaster, GOP strategists like Davis can still claim that Republicans have exceeded expectations, and all thanks to the brilliant work of… GOP strategists like Davis.