Although The Associated Press has yet to call which party has won control of the House, Republicans declared victory Tuesday on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

“It is a beautiful morning in Washington,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. “It is a new day in America. The sun’s shining, and that's a reflection about how we all feel. We flipped blue seats to red as we planned, and we kept this majority.”

According to the AP tally as of Tuesday morning, Republicans had won 214 seats, Democrats had won 205, and 16 races were still undecided. A party needs 218 seats to win the majority.

The GOP has, however, taken back the White House and Senate. And with House control within reach, Republicans could have a relatively smooth path to implementing President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda.

Trump will be in Washington on Wednesday to meet with outgoing President Joe Biden. Johnson said House Republicans are working out details to have Trump visit them before he heads to the White House. 

“That would be a great meeting and a moment for all of us,” the speaker said. “There's a lot of excitement, a lot of energy here. We're really grateful for President Trump leaving it all on the field to get reelected.”

Johnson and other House leaders said Trump’s decisive victory over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and the GOP’s potential sweep of both chambers of Congress would amount to a mandate for Republicans to implement their policy wish list.

“We are ready to deliver on America's mandate in the next Congress,” Johnson said.

The speaker did not go into detail about legislation but said passing measures aimed at securing the border and lowering the costs of gasoline and groceries is a top priority.

Johnson said he will spend this weekend at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida ironing out their plans. 

He also said “precious time was wasted” by Republicans during the early stages of Trump’s first administration. 

“We are not going to make those mistakes again,” he said. “We will be ready on day one. We are prepared this time.”

“I told President Trump many times … we believe we could be the most consequential Congress of the modern era and he the most consequential president because we quite literally have to fix almost every metric of public policy,” Johnson said. “Everything is a mess. Everything.”

Even if they do win the majority, Republicans are expected to temporarily be short-handed in the House after Trump picked two of their members to join his administration. Trump will nominate Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York to be the ambassador to the United Nations and has asked Rep. Michael Waltz of Florida to be his national security adviser.

Johnson said he has talked with Trump about the numbers crunch the GOP could find itself in and does not expect the president-elect to invite any other House Republicans to join his administration.

“We have a really talented Republican Conference,” Johnson said. “We've got really competent, capable people here. Many of them could serve in really important positions in the new administration, but President Trump fully understands and appreciates the math here.”

Other Republicans leaders insisted their party’s success at the polls is proof that it is more in tune with the needs of the voters than Democrats are.

“People are furious that there's an open southern border, and they want it closed,” said Senate Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La. “People are struggling because they can’t afford to buy food or fill up their cars or pay their utility bills, and the leaders in the White House were not listening.

“The other side is sitting around trying to blame themselves and assign blame for their failure, but they still will not admit the real problem why Democrats were rejected at the polls last week,” he continued. “It was because they had no answers. They had no message to those families who were struggling.”