Post-Election Remarks - Nov. 6, 2024

Thank you so much for being here. We don’t know the outcome of the election yet, but we do know that someone like me, a mom who works in the trades, would never have gotten to Congress without all of you. I am so profoundly grateful to all of you. And to be within very close reach of a second term, I could not have done this without your support and your incredible hard work. Everyone who is here today and a lot of people who aren’t: thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

We have been through a lot this election. National partisan division and anger came home to our community when an arsonist fire-bombed a ballot box in Fisher’s Landing. We don’t who did it, but we know who didn’t do it: a patriot. Someone who cares about their community is not an arsonist. They do not burn each other’s ballots. The arsonist wanted to scare us and divide us, and I am proud to say that Southwest Washington is not a place where we allow extremism to go unchallenged.

Clearly, something is broken in our politics. We can feel it. And it doesn’t feel good. But, friends, it is not our civic duty to unfriend people on Facebook or leave nasty comments online. Commitment to our community and real pride in where we live is how we start to fix what is broken in our country. It’s talking to your neighbors at the gas pump, it is talking to your friends at daycare drop-off, it is talking on the phones and your family members that you don’t agree with. A key reason that I ran for this state in 2022 was watching a Republican primary candidate forum where somebody asked a smart question. They asked all the candidates to name just three lakes in Southwest Washington and Joe Kent couldn’t do it. Joe Kent couldn’t do it. That kind of personal ambition and national agenda that leads someone to run to represent a community who doesn’t even know it is corrosive. I’m in this race to represent us. Our independent values. There is not an agenda that’s going to get imported from somewhere else, from some thinktank from across the country that can fix what’s broken in our community or reflect our values. And if we win again, it is a signal to the rest of the country that it is possible to take a different path. Step away from the national talking points and the hyper-partisanship and run a campaign based on respect for working people and the issues that directly impact us here at home.

I think that 90% of us agree on about 90% of the issues, but they choose the ten issues we disagree about to turn into a stake to drive into the heart of our community. And it’s not what we need. What we need is shop class in junior high. What we need are good jobs that don’t require a college degree. What we need is the right to fix our own stuff and ensure that regulations don’t serve as a moat protecting the big guys from family businesses like ours and my husbands’ and I. We need farmers and fishermen to be able to pass their land and their businesses down through generations. We need to ensure that women have the right to make their own healthcare decisions. And it’s not glamorous, but we need sewer systems that work. No one in D.C. cares if there’s flooding in Chehalis River Valley. No one cares if Ryderwood’s out of power. But I care. It’s my family’s homes they’re going to flood. And I think that focusing on the issues like this at home is how we break the gridlock and the extremism and start to fix what is broken in our country.

This is about fidelity to place and representing it because you love it. We have a long history of standing up to extremism in our community on both ends, and it’s the strength of that muscle of the middle that we are once again testing in this election. Whether the middle holds is yet to be seen here, but one thing is sure: we put in a hell of a lot of effort. We, you, all of us, knocked over a hundred thousand doors. That is crazy. That is crazy. We’ve held dozens of events in every corner of our county the past two years. And it has been the honor of my life to represent Southwest Washington in Congress. We truly have something special here, and it is worth the fight. So let’s do it. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.