Like many of my co-workers in the State Capitol, I slept late on the morning of November 6th.  Questions fostered anxiety: What will this new administration mean for our LGBTQ friends, women, or vibrant immigrant communities?  What will it mean for health care, the environment or any number of topics I’d worked on over the past several years?  Electoral grief and a creeping sense of hopelessness made for the perfect justification to stay in bed, under sheets and blankets where I tried to hide from the news of Donald Trump’s reelection.

 

   But after that brief indulgence in loss and a sense of helplessness, another reality set in. While the national landscape on election night tilted toward Republicans across the country, Oregon kept her Democratic edge. In fact, we expanded Democratic majorities in both the State House and Senate. We elected three new Democrats to statewide offices.

 

   Our Democratic values are Oregon values: Personal freedom, dignity, mutual aid, and a tendency to band together — not divide our communities — when times are tough.  These principles run deep and strong through Oregon’s cultural DNA.

 

   But the value that most redeemed us at the ballot box was our work ethic.  Oregon is not tilted towards Democratic results as a function of an overwhelming registration; in fact, less than one out of every three voters in Oregon is a Democrat.  Rather, we work hard at connecting to voters, to communicating our principles, and turning shoe leather into votes.

 

   Perhaps that’s why, while the Democratic message was being diffused in other parts of the country as it competed with mail, TV, internet memes, and all manner of other distractions, we landed that connection in Oregon.  We cut through the vitriol and lies and had conversations about what Americans actually care about.

 

   Americans care about their pocketbooks.  In Oregon, we showed Americans how Democrats can mobilize an expansion of the Earned Income tax credit to get money in their pockets, and we elected an Attorney General who’s committed to fight against big corporations who price-gouge our groceries.

 

   Americans care about health and safety.  We made Oregon one of the safest states in the nation for reproductive healthcare, and we boast 94% of Oregonians covered by health insurance. We’ve passed first-of-its-kind legislation protecting kids from drugs, created wide coalitions to help address organized theft, and pioneered safeguards against undue uses of force.

 

   Americans care about their children.  Oregon Democrats worked hard to strengthen community input on what our schools need, ensure special education needs are met, and make historic investments in child care services and early childhood education.  We’ve improved paid family leave and made it easier for Oregonians to both start a family, and be there when their family needs them.

 

   Democratic policies provide the best solutions for the issues we care most about, and in Oregon, we did the hard work of communicating those those values and visions to voters who are, understandably, worried about the future.

 

   I know there are people who still feel like getting out of bed is hopeless. They’re weighed down by grief and fear.  I understand those stormy feelings; I felt them too.  But in the midst of that heartache, there is something comforting about the strength of my fellow Oregonians and the results that we’ve seen are possible. For me, I’m going to get back to work. We have more work to do in the State Capitol and in connecting with voters.

 

   We have more work to do in our communities and in building the template for other states.  The work we do today isn’t just safeguarding our own rights and values for the coming years, it is setting an example for those who have yet to see what is possible.  

 

   This is not the time to pull the covers over our heads. This is the time to stand up for one another. To pursue bold, innovative protections in Oregon that will shelter us from the federal land- scape in coming years. To not only support those leaders who have made Oregon what it is today, but to also welcome our new community leaders, activists, volunteers — and voters — whose first foray into politics will be a fight for the soul of our nation.

 

   There’s work to be done.

 

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Alexandria Goddard lives in Bethany and serves as a Legislative staff member in the Oregon Senate, and a Precinct Committee Person in the Democratic Party of Oregon.