“This is what democracy looks like”: Read Manka Dhingra’s Election Night victory speech

Edi­tor’s Note: Sev­en­ty-two hours ago, offi­cials released the ini­tial results for con­tests appear­ing on Wash­ing­ton’s 2017 gen­er­al elec­tion bal­lot, includ­ing the close­ly watched race for State Sen­ate in Wash­ing­ton’s 45th Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict. Short­ly after hear­ing the news that she had a near­ly ten point lead over her Repub­li­can rival Jiny­oung Lee Englund, Demo­c­ra­t­ic can­di­date Man­ka Dhin­gra was wel­comed to the stage by Attor­ney Gen­er­al Bob Fer­gu­son to address her sup­port­ers. The fol­low­ing is the text of her speech as pre­pared for delivery. 

Good evening, every­one.… the results are in!

Democ­ra­cy is alive and well. And it’s thriv­ing, right here in the 45th District.

To the thou­sands of vol­un­teers who knocked on doors, made phone calls, licked envelopes, waved signs, and pound­ed the pave­ment on my behalf;

To my fam­i­ly – Har­jit, Kavi, and Isha – and my moth­er Chandan;

To my staff – Louise, Dil­lon, Ash­ley, Lainie, and Dane;

To my interns and the mem­bers of the Teen Cam­paign Committee;

To all of the ded­i­cat­ed vol­un­teers, the mem­bers of Indi­vis­i­ble, Flip­pable, Sis­ter Dis­trict Project, and count­less oth­ers who decid­ed, “Now is the time for me to step up and join a cam­paign for the first time”;

To all of you… Thank you.

You are what democ­ra­cy looks like. And when democ­ra­cy wakes up, jus­tice wins.

I want to say con­grat­u­la­tions to Jiny­oung Englund on a race well run. It was an hon­or for me to have my first polit­i­cal cam­paign be against anoth­er strong, woman of col­or. Jiny­oung, your com­mit­ment to the peo­ple of our dis­trict and serv­ing our state nev­er flagged through a long, tough, high-pro­file campaign.

And you know, this was a tough cam­paign. A lot of mon­ey was spent on this race. A lot! And a lot of it was spent by peo­ple out­side our com­mu­ni­ty, bent on divid­ing us against each oth­er in hopes of mov­ing their own polit­i­cal agen­das for­ward. Some­where along the way, those peo­ple start­ed mak­ing this elec­tion about “us” vs “them.” And I don’t have to tell you – in that sto­ry, I was the “them.”

This play­book is being exe­cut­ed all over our coun­try right now.

When you see the pol­i­tics of trib­al­ism, mis­in­for­ma­tion, and mis­trust hap­pen­ing around you, when you see the hate and the fear and the divi­sion walk­ing around unafraid, it can be scary. It can be depress­ing. And it can hurt.

And when near­ly $2.5 mil­lion gets spent to aim those attacks at you, per­son­al­ly – I mean, I’m a pros­e­cu­tor, I’m a pret­ty tough per­son. But that’s still not okay.

But even in the face of all those attacks, I nev­er lost courage. And do you know why? It’s because of each and every one of you.

What I’ve learned from our com­mu­ni­ty dur­ing this cam­paign is that when we are attacked with fear, divi­sive­ness, and dis­hon­esty, we respond with love.

We respond with integri­ty, hon­esty, and a com­mit­ment to solv­ing prob­lems, togeth­er. And these are not val­ues that are bound to any par­tic­u­lar par­ty or iden­ti­ty. These are val­ues that we, as mem­bers of the 45th, and as Wash­ing­to­ni­ans, and as Amer­i­cans, believe in.

I learned the pow­er that love has, to deliv­er jus­tice, long ago, through my own fam­i­ly his­to­ry. In 1947, when colo­nial India was legal­ly sep­a­rat­ed along reli­gious lines into what are now India and Pak­istan, com­mu­ni­ties were ripped apart by reli­gious vio­lence, and tens of mil­lions of Hin­dus, Sikhs, and Mus­lims became refugees overnight. My fam­i­ly mem­bers were for­tu­nate. But instead of stay­ing inside and keep­ing their heads down, the women of my fam­i­ly decid­ed to go out into the refugee camps and help migrants of all reli­gious stripes on their journey.

But this is not just a sto­ry of my fam­i­ly. This is the sto­ry of what makes us human. This refusal to let polit­i­cal­ly moti­vat­ed divi­sions turn peo­ple against their fel­low human beings is a pow­er root­ed in love, and it’s one that I know will win, and it’s what I’ve seen over and over again dur­ing the course of this campaign.

A cou­ple weeks ago, I met a man in Duvall. He told me he was a small gov­ern­ment Repub­li­can and had vot­ed for Trump, but he was still going to cast his vote for me. When I asked him why, he said that the week­end before, one of our vol­un­teer can­vassers had knocked on his door.

It turns out this woman was a local teacher whom he knew and admired. She told him that she real­ly respect­ed me, and that was enough for him.

When it comes down to it, this is what democ­ra­cy is about.

It’s not about agree­ing on every­thing and pre­tend­ing we’re all the same.

It’s about being honest.

It’s about respect.

It’s about dis­agree­ing and debat­ing, but it’s also about lis­ten­ing and mov­ing for­ward. It’s about invit­ing that par­ent from your kid’s soc­cer team whom you know is on the “oth­er side” of the polit­i­cal spec­trum into your kitchen for cof­fee, and know­ing that even if he thinks schools should be fund­ed by prop­er­ty tax­es, and you think they should be fund­ed by car­bon tax­es, tomor­row, you’ll still be cut­ting orange slices and cheer­ing your kids on together.

In this fight against mis­in­for­ma­tion and dis­trac­tion and divi­sion that feels so sur­re­al at times – it’s real rela­tion­ships between real peo­ple that will save us.

And it’s not just polit­i­cal con­ver­sa­tions and neigh­bor­ly debate that a healthy democ­ra­cy enables. It’s also care, for and by each other.

I recent­ly had a con­ver­sa­tion with a self-iden­ti­fied Lib­er­tar­i­an who opened his con­ver­sa­tion with me by say­ing, “Well, I don’t believe the gov­ern­ment should be inter­fer­ing in people’s lives.” We stood on his porch for about an hour, talk­ing about the role of gov­ern­ment in a free soci­ety and what that means.

Final­ly, the thing that won him over was when I told him about one of my proud­est accom­plish­ments in the King Coun­ty Prosecutor’s office – the estab­lish­ment of the Region­al Vet­er­ans’ Court. We have vet­er­ans, peo­ple who have sac­ri­ficed their lives, bod­ies and minds for us. Vet­er­ans, who are home­less and involved in our crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. And this is sim­ply wrong. Often, they end up incar­cer­at­ed because of untreat­ed drug and alco­hol issues, pover­ty, home­less­ness, or PTSD.

When the gov­ern­ment sup­ports them by estab­lish­ing a spe­cial­ty court for address­ing these root needs – that’s not a handout.

The goal of Vet­er­ans’ Court is not to make vet­er­ans depen­dent on gov­ern­ment. It’s to give them the sup­port, ser­vices and care they need, so they can get the oppor­tu­ni­ties they deserve to stand on their own again.

These val­ues – com­mu­ni­cat­ing with each oth­er with curios­i­ty and with integri­ty, hon­or­ing and sup­port­ing each oth­er with com­pas­sion, and learn­ing to solve prob­lems togeth­er in a spir­it of inde­pen­dence and cre­ativ­i­ty – these are the val­ues that I will bring with me to Olympia as your State Senator.

And with your help, I hope to build a state gov­ern­ment that empow­ers every sin­gle per­son in Wash­ing­ton to feel like they have a voice, like they have a role to play in mak­ing our democ­ra­cy thrive.

So tonight, as I stand before all of you who have con­tributed time and mon­ey and effort and pave­ment pound­ing to this cam­paign, say­ing thank you, I also want to speak to those peo­ple who didn’t come out this time or did not vote for me – those of you who might be feel­ing ner­vous, or uncertain.

I want to say to you – you are not alone.

I promise to rep­re­sent you. I promise to fight for you. I promise to bring integri­ty, hon­esty, com­pas­sion, and respon­si­bil­i­ty to the 45th, and to Olympia. But I also want to say, it’s not just me who’s going to fight for you.

It’s also peo­ple like Kei­th and Dix­ie, the retired cou­ple who, one week­end, got tired of yelling at the news on their TVs and have spent every week­end since then vol­un­teer­ing in my cam­paign office and knock­ing on doors, rain or shine or snow.

It’s Ty, Joe, and all the mem­bers of our Teen Cam­paign Com­mit­tee, many of whom can’t dri­ve or even vote, but who have been the lifeblood of this campaign.

It’s the Nov­el­ty Hill Resisters, who orga­nized a March for Man­ka last week­end and walked up and down Nov­el­ty Hill wav­ing signs.

It’s my fel­low East­side soc­cer moms who fought back against mis­lead­ing tele­vi­sion ads by post­ing a pho­to of them­selves on Face­book hold­ing a sign that said, #RealPeo­ple­For­Man­ka.

It’s the intern who spent hours can­vass­ing with me and talk­ing about the role of jus­tice in our lives, and who is now going to law school to get her J.D.

All of these peo­ple, and thou­sands more in our state, and mil­lions more in our coun­try, are prov­ing that if you care about democ­ra­cy, about jus­tice, about a free and equi­table soci­ety – you don’t have to per­son­al­ly have a lot of mon­ey, or con­nec­tions, or pow­er to make a dif­fer­ence. All you need is your com­pas­sion, your cre­ativ­i­ty, and the courage of your con­vic­tions. And all we need is each other.

Ten months ago, we launched this cam­paign with the slo­gan, “Strength­en­ing Com­mu­ni­ties.” Tonight is the result of thou­sands of indi­vid­ual peo­ple decid­ing to turn those words into actions. Tomor­row is the begin­ning of turn­ing those actions into a future – for our dis­trict, for our state, for our coun­try, and for our world.
And this is what democ­ra­cy looks like. Thank you.

POSTSCRIPT: If Manka’s lead holds — as it has all week — she will assume the duties of her office on Novem­ber 28th, 2017. The NPI team thanks Sen­a­tor-elect Dhin­gra for shar­ing her remarks with our read­ers in this spe­cial guest post.