President Donald Trump congratulated Democrats on their midterm election victories after early results showed Republicans suffered major losses in Congress.
He said he was ready to work with the opposition party to advance the country’s interests.
House Speaker Mike Johnson also acknowledged the Republican Party could not overcome historical trends that often hurt the president’s party during midterm elections. “From the first day of this election, we knew that to keep the House and sustain our majority, we would have to defy more than a century of midterm history. Trump argued that Republicans would have performed better if he himself had appeared on the ballot.
Because he was not directly competing in the election, he said his supporters were less motivated.
The president also blamed some losses on candidate selection and said some Republican nominees lacked support from the party’s base. “In some cases they didn’t like the candidates, and in some cases those candidates were not my friend and the base knows that better than anybody,” Trump said. Trump also said he had worked hard to support Republican candidates during the election cycle but acknowledged that many candidates failed to secure victories. “I tried to help people get elected, and they were not elected,” Trump said. “The people didn’t come out as they should have.”
