John -

I want you to know how proud I am of you and the grassroots movement we built. I’m so grateful for this community.

Obviously, we did not get the results we wanted on Tuesday night. Nevertheless, our movement was victorious.

The first thing we had to defeat was the culture of fear — and our movement succeeded in proving we're ready to bring fundamental change to South Texas.

From the beginning, this campaign was about uplifting the stories of our border community.

It was an opportunity to prove that a brown girl from the border with a whole community behind her could take on the machine and bring hope to South Texans.

We did that — and more. We exceeded all expectations of a primary challenger — raising more than $2 million (the most of any challenger to an incumbent in recent memory) and moving him on issues from impeachment to the minimum wage.

He claimed that we were “not serious,” but we forced him to spend over $2 million out of his war chest. The establishment machine and his corporate backers fought back. They saw us coming. They saw our hope, and it terrified them.

For months, our opponent wanted us to live in a life of fear. Fear of change, fear of the future. But the only way you defeat fear is with courage and determination that in the richest nation in the world, we all deserve to thrive.

And this is just the start of our fight for justice. We are going to keep organizing in South Texas.

This is the beginning.

Siempre unidos en la lucha,

Jessica Cisneros