"It was a good day, I think, for democracy."
White House officials have expressed a sense of vindication after Biden focused his campaign pitch largely on preventing threats to U.S. democracy, securing abortion rights and extolling his economic policies.
Republicans made modest gains in the midterms and are likely to take control of the House of Representatives, but control of the Senate was hanging in the balance as three races had not yet been called as of Wednesday afternoon.
It was a far cry from the "red wave" republicans were hoping for.
As Many GOP candidates backed by Former President Donald Trump underperformed.
Trump notched a victory in Ohio, where J.D. Vance won a Senate seat, keeping it in Republican hands. But in Pennsylvania, Mehmet Oz lost his Senate race to John Fetterman, flipping the seat Democrat, and Doug Mastriano, another Trump ally, was defeated in his bid for governor.
Other races were also disappointments for the former president.
Nathaniel Birkhead is a political science professor at Kansas State University.
"If I was a Republican, I would absolutely distance myself from Trump. The Trump candidates are top to bottom, have done far, far more poorly than the more independent ones."
The new balance of power in Washington might not be known for weeks.
With the Georgia U.S. Senate race headed to a runoff next month between Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock and Trump-backed Republican Herschel Walker, after neither candidate captured 50 percent of the vote...
In the meantime, Biden said he was prepared to work with Republicans.
"The American people have made clear, I think, that they expect Republicans to be prepared to work with me as well."
