Kamala Harris has a warning for the Democrats who just swept back into power in Washington: the victory lap is over before it started.

A day after her party seized control of both the House and the Senate in the midterm elections, the former vice president put out a statement on social media Wednesday telling newly elected Democrats to be "ruthless" with what voters gave them. She wants the party to pull "every lever of power" to get economic relief to working families while pressing the administration over what she called its "deep-seated corruption."

"Now, the work begins to actually deliver results," Harris wrote. She read the returns as a rejection of the White House along with the Republican leaders who she said had capitulated to it. In her telling voters were fed up with corruption and incompetence at the top.

"Hallelujah"

Harris spent much of the fall on the road for her party. Two of the candidates she stumped for, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and James Talarico in Texas, are now senators-elect. Another, Keisha Lance Bottoms, just became Georgia's governor-elect. She also rallied for Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff along with Scott Colom, whose Mississippi Senate race is still separated by a sliver of votes.

Those trips, she wrote, showed her voters determined to "turn pain into purpose." She thanked the candidates along with the thousands of volunteers who worked the phones and knocked on doors to get Democrats over the line.

She also posted a few seconds of video of herself reacting to the news that Democrats had won back Congress. Her entire response was one word: "Hallelujah!"

The moment had shades of 2020. That year a clip of Harris on the phone telling Joe Biden "We did it, Joe!" spread across the internet once the presidential race was called. This week people online recycled the line as the midterm map turned blue.

Not a new word for her

Harris has been leaning on "ruthless" for months. At the National Urban League's annual conference in New Orleans in July she told the crowd that Republicans play ruthless politics so Democrats need to as well. She stressed that she did not mean cruelty or lawbreaking. What she wanted, she said, was a party with no patience for injustice or corruption.

In that same stretch she floated a list of big structural changes: reforming the Electoral College, growing the Supreme Court to 13 justices and statehood for Puerto Rico along with the District of Columbia. She has also pushed for fairer taxes and cheaper housing, health care and child care.

What comes next

Democrats take the gavels in January for the last two years of President Donald Trump's second term. The White House loses the friendly majorities that pushed much of its agenda through. Democrats gain subpoena power along with the chance to move their own bills.

Other party heavyweights chimed in too. Hillary Clinton wrote on X that voters had demanded accountability and affordability. She said crimes against the Constitution must be answered for and declared that "the post-Trump era begins now."

Bill Clinton took a gentler line. He said the win handed Democrats the job of rebuilding trust and urged them to reach out with "an open hand" to people who voted the other way.

Harris has still not said whether she will make a third run for the White House in 2028. Pressed by CNN in October she said she goes "back and forth" on the decision. By the end of the midterm season she had logged more campaign stops than Barack Obama, CNN reported.