Let them know. I want you to let them know. Let them know that we, together, fighting for something bigger, we won.
So, Mike, enjoy your retirement. I know you got a house in Florida and two yachts. See, you chose hate, and Michigan chose hope. May we never have to see the likes of you in this state again.
J.D., habibi, there is this delicious irony in the fact that you're constitutionally obligated to swear me in in January. So you know what that means? Wolverines one, Buckeyes zero.
Donald, look, I know you struggled with my name. So after J.D. swears me in in January, you can just go on and call me Senator.
To the super PACs and special interests who tried to beat us, we are coming for your system of politics.
To AIPAC, who spent $42 million against us, thank you for giving me the opportunity to beat you twice.
And I want to say something here. See, they try to call you hateful. If you believe that Palestinian kids should get to grow up in the land of their forefathers, that they should not be murdered by our tax dollars, if you believe in equal rights to peace, dignity, and self-determination, that's not hate. It's love.
Michiganders, we want our taxes spent here, for schools here and health care here and infrastructure here. We don't want our money sent to do apartheid or genocide or war.
Michiganders believe in Michigan, and I believe in Michiganders, and I am so honored that Michiganders believed in me.
See, you took a bet on the least likely of candidates. I'm not a politician. I'm a doctor with an 11-letter first name.
They told us, when I started this campaign, there was no way to beat the money. They told us that someone with my name and my story, a Muslim, was unelectable, let alone in a statewide Senate race in Michigan.
They told us that old-fashioned politics was dead, that traveling the state to have real conversations with real people in real places was a fool's errand.
They told us that the establishment was too strong, that D.C. was going to dictate who won and who lost, that Washington and its special interests didn't want us.
They told us that when all the votes had been counted on August 4th and then again on November 3rd, it would have been time and money and energy wasted.
Guess what? It's November 3rd, and the votes have been counted.
And guess what? We sure showed them that a movement of the people, by the people, and for the people will ultimately win.
Michigan understands solidarity. It's the people who decide who we send to Washington and what Washington will do. We decide, not the big money or their stooges. The people of Michigan will be heard.
We showed that, together, we can defeat a record $70 million of outside spending and an 11-to-1 money disadvantage in a primary election.
That we can defeat a quarter of a billion dollars in a general election.
We can defeat the cynicism of a politics that preys on our earnestness, undersells our intelligence, and exploits our disagreements.
Tonight, Michigan, we beat a machine.
And we proved once again just how big America really is.
