Boris Johnson has thanked voters for backing the Tories in the constituency once held by former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Speaking at Sedgefield Cricket Club, Mr Johnson told voters they had “changed the political landscape”.
He said: “I want to thank you, all of you, for the trust that you have placed in us in the Conservative Party and in me, and I know how difficult it was, it can be to make that kind of decision.
“And I can imagine people’s pencil’s hovering over the ballot paper and wavering before coming down for us and the Conservatives, and I know that people may have been breaking the voting habits of generations to vote for us.
“And I want the people of the North East to know that we in the Conservative Party and I will repay your trust – and everything that we do, everything that I do as your Prime Minister, will be devoted to repaying that trust.
“And first of all what are we going to do? We’re going to get Brexit done.”
Mr Johnson said the Government would be committed to spreading opportunity across the country.
“We believe that talent is evenly distributed throughout our country but opportunity is unfairly distributed,” he said.
“We are going to rectify that as a One Nation Conservative government, as a people’s government.”
He added: “We are going to recover our national self-confidence, our mojo, our self-belief and we are going to do things differently and better as a country.
“It is going to be a wonderful, wonderful time for our country. Our country will stand tall in the world.”
Mr Johnson is celebrating his party’s biggest election win in 30 years.
Voters backed the Tories in areas that had traditionally held Labour seats.
Some areas, such as Bishop Auckland in the North East, had never elected a Tory MP before Thursday.
Labour suffered its worst election result since the 1930s.
Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said he did "everything he could" to get Labour into power but expects to stand down "early next year" when a successor has been chosen by the party.
He added that said the election was "taken over by Brexit", while others within the party blamed Mr Corbyn's leadership for the defeat.
With all 650 results declared, the Conservatives had 365 seats after the election – a net gain of 67 compared to the state of the parties at the dissolution of Parliament in November.
Labour were on 203, a net loss of 42, the SNP on 48, a gain of 13, and the Liberal Democrats on 11, a loss of 10.
