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.
“My message is, congratulations to the Democrats, and I look forward to working with you for the good of our country,” Trump told CBS News in a phone interview after polls near close on Tuesday nights.
Also read: Check live updates of the 2026 US Midterms here.
Trump blames absence from ballot for Republican losses
Trump argued that Republicans would have performed better if he himself had appeared on the ballot. He said his supporters were less motivated because he was not directly competing in the election.
“I feel that I wasn’t on the ballot, and there was nothing that could be done about that,” Trump told CBS News. “If I was, we would have won.”
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.”
Johnson accepts House defeat as GOP faces leadership questions
Republicans entered the election hoping to defend their narrow House majority but faced voter concerns over the economy, national issues and the direction of the administration. Democrats capitalized on those concerns and gained enough seats to shift control of the chamber.
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.”
He further added, “My friends, we had one of the most productive Congresses in the history of the institution.”
He ended his speech by saying, “We DOUBLE DOWN. Come 2028 — WE WILL TAKE BACK THE HOUSE, and we will FINISH this job.”