Primary Victory Speech - June 3, 2014

To God be the glory. Don’t ever forget that God had His hand on this campaign from the day we announced to the day we humbly accept this nomination. There are a whole lot of people that I need to thank. I am going to forget some of them tonight, but you all know that I love you so charge it to my head and not my heart.

I first have to apologize to Sean because he wrote me a fantastic speech. He wrote me two speeches. One was a yes and one was a no. Sean Darcy, I am very happy to be able to refer to your yes speech.

Anybody know Adam Steinberger in this place? Adam Steinberger rocks. That is my campaign manager. I have had an incredible campaign team. You see these blue and white shirts over here? That is just part of the team. I have had incredible volunteers. I have had incredible strategists. I have had incredible praying warriors. Brian Hughes and Shirley Turner made sure that I was everywhere I needed to be, doing everything I needed to do, speaking to everyone I needed to speak to, and when I couldn’t they did it for me.

Reed, he gave me Carrie and I am very grateful because Carrie and I have traveled up and down this district together. She knows every word to Hezekiah Walker’s "Every Praise," including when we were playing it upstairs.

You know, labor is really important to me. The laborers, they were there I think before it got completely out on the wire and they have been there ever since, from the very beginning to the very end. I am proud to have them on my side and I am grateful. The carpenters and the SEIU, AFSCME, and CWA, always came through.

My brothers, Bill, Jay, and Tim, and their wives, Deb, Donna, and Mary Helen to-be, always, always supported me. My brother Bill told me two weeks ago that you have my undivided attention, and look where it got us. My husband has been on an incredible journey with this woman from the very beginning. I pray that it be a good journey because I think he is a good husband.

I can stand up here and say si se puede. I can say si se puede because we did it. My brothers and sisters, they did it. Si se puede.

I had incredible co-laborers in this journey. They, too, were worthy of consideration. Assemblyman Chivukula, Sen. Greenstein, and Andrew Zwicker, all honorable people, all people who believed in the things that we believed in. I heard from Linda Greenstein who says, ‘I’m standing with you. I will do whatever you need.’ I heard from Assemblyman Chivukula who congratulated me. I tell you, this is what I want to tell Democrats north, south, east and west, we are a united front. We are different than Republicans and we deserve to be united and together.

You have gotten me over this first step, Bob Diorio. My hometown showed up. You got me through this first step. We have a big step to climb over in November, but we have time, and I mean to plan and execute, not plan and execute simultaneous like we had to do. We will give Pat Hood a little rest, let her do some work. James Gee is going to work on our next project on June 10th and deliver to the city of Trenton the new mayor. We are going to go down there to Congress, and we are going to work on immigration reform. We are going to work on women’s rights. We are going to work on voting rights. We are going to work on getting guns out of the hands of people they shouldn’t be in. We are going to work on leveling the playing ground and bringing jobs back here and ensuring that our children have a good and globally competitive education, public education that is, and then accessibility to a higher education.

Tonight we celebrate, right Cynthia? We celebrate tonight, and we thank God for his having delivered us thus far. Then we start tomorrow working on our short term project which is to get this man here the new mayor on June the 10th. From there, we work on succeeding this honorable and wonderful congressman in Congress because he has worked on incredible work from climate change to voting rights to women’s rights, healthcare accessibility, and he needs someone who will go to Congress and work just as hard as he did.

I have forgotten half the things I was supposed to say, but I’m telling you from my heart, I am grateful, I’m humbled, I will work hard for you each and every day, and I recognize to whom much is given much is required because this is public service, y’all. Thank you and God bless.