Speaker Mike Johnson: Republicans ‘faced some real odds’

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told supporters in Louisiana on Tuesday that the GOP “faced some real odds” in the midterm elections but that the fight was far from over.

“We knew that to keep the House and sustain our majority, we would have to defy more than a century of midterm history, OK?” Johnson said. “It’s only happened twice in 90 years that a sitting president has picked up or held seats for his party in that first two-year cycle. There’s a lot of reasons for it. It’s very, very difficult to overcome. And it looks like history will be kept tonight.”

Johnson’s remarks came after Democrats flipped control of both the House and Senate , setting the stage for a series of high-stakes confrontations between Congress and the White House next year over the Iran war, immigration, healthcare and a multitude of other issues.

Johnson said Republicans “launched one of the most dynamic political operations in the history of Congress.”

“We made our case in terms of the language of common sense. We said this was a contrast election between common sense and crazy. And I will maintain that that is exactly what it was, all right,” he said. “And I said from day one that I was gonna leave everything on the field in this endeavor, and I’m proud to say that’s exactly what we did.”

He added that not a single American family will be better off if Democrats “turn Congress into a circus, and I’m afraid that is what some of them want to do.”

“If they make the next two years about retribution and lawfare and partisan games, every American will suffer by that. And I tell you what we will do. We will put a firewall of House Republicans standing in their way to ensure that doesn’t happen,” he said.

House Democrats have already pledged to launch investigations into President Trump and his inner circle, targeting everything from the president’s personal and family finances to the administration’s immigration crackdown.

Still, Johnson remained hopeful of the future ahead for Republicans.

“We will continue pressing forward with our agenda of common sense and our vision to make America great again. And come 2028, we will take back the House, and we will finish this job,” Johnson said.