President Joe Biden said Democrats did well in the midterm elections as the predicted red wave didn’t happen.
“While we don’t know all the results yet—at least I don’t know them all yet—while the press and the pundits were predicting a giant red wave, it didn’t happen,” Biden told reporters in Washington on Nov. 9 in his first public remarks since Sunday.
“I know you were somewhat miffed by incessant optimism but I felt good during the whole process. I thought we were going to do fine. While any seat lost is painful—some good Democrats didn’t win last night—Democrats had a strong night, and we lost fewer seats in the House of Representatives than any Democratic president’s first midterm election in the last 40 years,” he added.
In President Bill Clinton’s first midterm, Democrats lost 52 seats in the House of Representatives and eight in the Senate. In President Barack Obama’s first midterm, Democrats lost 63 seats in the House and six in the Senate.
In most cases in history, the president’s party loses seats in the midterms. In President Donald Trump’s first midterm, for example, Republicans lost 40 seats in the House, though they gained two in the upper chamber.
Some forecasters had projected Republicans flipping so many seats in the House that they would enjoy a strong majority but results as of Wednesday afternoon had Republicans with a net gain of just six seats, despite Biden’s low approval ratings.
Some races have not been called yet but the GOP does appear poised to flip control of the lower chamber.
Democrats also picked up a seat representing Pennsylvania, though they would lose the upper chamber if either the race in Nevada, where votes are still being counted, or the race in Georgia, where a runoff will happen next month, go to the GOP.
Regardless of the final tally, Biden said, “I’m prepared to work with my Republican colleagues.”
“The American people have made clear, I think, that they expect Republicans to be prepared to work with me as well,” he added.
Once questions started, though, Biden said he would do nothing differently moving forward.
Once people learn more about what Democrats are doing, he claimed, the more they support it, including actions on prescription drug prices and guns.
Biden also said he will keep working to ban “assault weapons” and try to “unite the country.”
