Victory Speech – Nov. 6, 2018

How are you feeling? [cheers] I’m going to ask my colleagues to join us here. [crowd chanting: “Speaker! Speaker!”]

Thank you all very much.

Let me salute our chair of the Democratic National Committee, Chairman Perez, for all his successes tonight. I also want to salute the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Aren’t we proud of Ben Ray Lujan?

I want to acknowledge my two grandsons, Thomas and Paul, as they wave to their other cousins in California who are still campaigning up to the last minute in California, because it’s all about the children.

I want to, before I thank all of you more fully, thank my colleagues and acknowledge their leadership and their presence here.

Our distinguished whip from Maryland, Steny Hoyer. The assistant leader, Mr. Clyburn of South Carolina.

Also, let’s assume they’re all distinguished.

Bobby Scott of Virginia. Anna Eshoo of California. G.K. Butterfield of North Carolina. Barbara Lee of California. Henry Cuellar of Texas. Karen Bass of California. Don Beyer of Virginia. And Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania.

We all join in thanking all of you. Many of you are VIPs, our real VIPs, our volunteers in politics. Women and men have mobilized in historic numbers, who saw what this GOP Congress was doing and refused to stand still. Every call you made, every door you knocked, every text you sent, every conversation you had made the difference between winning and losing in this election.

Thanks to you, we owned the ground. Thanks to you. Thanks to you, tomorrow will be a new day in America. Remember this feeling – know the power to win.

Most of all, congratulations to those dynamic, diverse, incredible candidates who have taken back the House for the American people. Let us salute all of our candidates.

Today is about more than Democrats and Republicans. It’s about restoring the Constitution’s checks and balances to the Trump administration. It’s about stopping the GOP and Mitch McConnell’s assault on Medicare, Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and the health care of 130 million Americans living with pre-existing medical conditions. Let’s hear it more for pre-existing medical conditions.

It’s about ending wealthy special interests’ free reign over Washington.

But more than anything, it’s about what a new Democratic majority will mean in the lives of hard-working Americans. That’s what it’s about.

Democrats pledge a Congress that works for the people. For the people. Lower the cost of health care by lowering the cost of prescription drugs. Raise workers’ wages with strong economic growth by rebuilding the infrastructure of America. Clean up corruption to make Washington work for all Americans.

We will take real, very very strong legislative actions to negotiate down the price control of prescription drugs that is burdening seniors and families across America.

We will deliver a transformational investment in America’s infrastructure to create more good-paying jobs, rebuilding our roads, schools, water systems, broadband networks, schools and housing and beyond.

We will drain the swamp of dark [special] interest money in our elections. Because when we do, Americans have greater confidence in everything their Congress works on, from health care to taxes to guns to clean air, clean water for our children. When they know that the people’s interest will prevail, not the dark special interests.

In stark contrast to the GOP Congress, the Democratic Congress will be led with transparency and openness, so that the public can see what is happening and how it affects them and that they can weigh in with the members of Congress and with the president of the United States.

We will have accountability and we will strive for bipartisanship with fairness on all sides. We will have a responsibility to find our common ground where we can, stand our ground where we can’t, but we must try. We have a bipartisan marketplace of ideas that makes our democracy strong.

A Democratic Congress will work for solutions that bring us together, because we all have had enough of division. The American people want peace, they want results, they want us to work for positive results for their lives.

Our founders believed in a principle that they knew must guide our nation. First in our Declaration, they promised life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But they gave us guidance – e pluribus unum – From many, one. The founders could never have imagined how vast our country would become, how many we would be, how different we would be from each other, but they knew we had to be one. Unity – unity for our country.

And today, the American people have spoken to restore that vision. With a new Democratic majority, we will honor the vision of our founders for a country having a legitimate debate, but remembering that we are one country.

We will honor the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform and their families who have made us the land of the free and the home of the brave, to build a better future worthy of their sacrifice.

And we must honor and respect the aspirations of our children. Elections are about the future, and what we do for our children’s future. So thank you all for making the future better for all of American’s children.

God bless you. God bless America. Thank you all very much.