President Trump on Wednesday took credit for Republicans’ gains in the Senate, saying the GOP “defied history” with the results of the midterm elections.
“It was a big day yesterday. Incredible day,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “And last night, the Republican Party defied history to expand our Senate majority while significantly beating expectations in the House.”
The president highlighted that nine of the 11 candidates he stumped for in the week before the elections were victorious Tuesday, and said the GOP “saw the candidates that I supported achieve tremendous success last night.”
“This vigorous campaigning stopped the blue wave that they talked about. I don’t know if there ever was such a thing, but could have been, if we didn’t do the campaigning,” Trump said. “History really will see what a good job we did in the final couple of weeks in terms of getting some tremendous people over the finish line.”
[Related: Trump declares ‘Big Victory’ in midterm elections]
Republicans picked up two Senate seats on Tuesday, bringing their majority in the upper chamber to 53. Races in Montana and Arizona remain to be called. The Senate race in Florida, meanwhile, is heading to a recount after incumbent Sen. Bill Nelson declined to concede to Republican challenger Gov. Rick Scott.
Democrats, meanwhile, took back control of the House for the first time in eight years, gaining 27 seats.
Trump said the GOP succeeded “in spite of a very dramatic fundraising disadvantage driven by Democrats’ wealthy donors and special interests and a very hostile media coverage.
“The media coverage set a new record and a new standard,” he said, though the president did not offer any examples.
Trump conducted a blitz of rallies in the closing days of the 2018 election cycle, swinging through eight states to campaign for Republicans on the ballot.
