I want to congratulate County Executive Alsobrooks on a hard-fought victory.
Tonight, regardless of who you voted for, we can all take pride in the election of the first Black woman to represent Maryland in the U.S. Senate.
Yumi and I offer our best wishes and our prayers to Angela and her family.
Now is the time for us to come together and move forward as one state and one nation.
I want to thank you to each and every person who stood by my side throughout this campaign.
If the pundits and politicians were more like the people I met every single day on the campaign trail, our country would be so much better off.
I stepped up to run because I was concerned about what kind of a future we would be leaving for all of our kids and grandkids.
We got into this race for the right reasons: to fix the broken politics and to put our country on the right track.
We ran the kind of campaign that represents what politics can be–and what it should be–driven by the people, not the party bosses, and focused on the issues that actually matter to families all across Maryland.
From day one, this was the only campaign in America that reached out to Republicans, Democrats, Independents alike.
Because that’s what it’s going to take to solve the serious problems we face.
Americans today are thoroughly convinced that we’re hopelessly divided, that Washington is completely dysfunctional, and that our entire political system is fundamentally broken.
The voices of the exhausted majority are ignored in deference to the demands of the loudest and angriest few who seem hell-bent on tearing America apart.
No matter what happens in this election, we as a country must move beyond talking only with those we agree with.
And we need to stop dismissing or even hating those we disagree with.
We have got to find a way to come together, to listen, and to believe in each other once again.
There really is far more that unites us than divides.
While tonight was not the outcome we hoped for, we can all hold our heads high.
I can tell you we left it all on the field, and I’m so damn proud of the effort.
Thank you all.
We proved that campaigns can be about so much more than just red versus blue.
I kept stressing that we need to get back to the red, white, and blue.
Though this chapter ends tonight, our work and our commitment to a brighter future and a better path forward will continue.
The stakes are too high to stop now.
The stakes are far too high for any of us to walk away and just sit on the sideline.
So to everyone who stood with us in this cause, who worked, fought, and believed in this campaign, let me say this:
You should never apologize for standing up for decency and common sense.
Never give in to fear or cynicism.
And never, ever, give up on the work of changing Maryland and America for the better.
Thank you, God bless you all, and may God bless the great State of Maryland and the United States of America.
