It’s hard to overstate the elation in our home on Tuesday night as we watched the election returns come in.

Wow, just wow… and WOW! It finally happened: Texas turned BLUE.

Tracie, the girls, and I are so excited about what’s going to begin happening in January! Our number one local and most immediate issue is “Goverbor Abbott out of our schools!”

But more than anything else, we are so relieved that Donald Trump’s crop of extreme Islamophobes, transphobes, and xenophobes were not allowed to drive our state deeper into the MAGA hegemon. Empathy and common sense prevailed. And now — apologies for the continued oceanic metaphors — the tide has turned!

So many people worked so hard in our state to achieve these results. My personal shout-outs go out to the voter registration drive led by Southeast Texas Impact Initiative in the Golden Triangle where Tracie grew up; and to Erika Harrison, who turned a successful career as a food influencer into a powerful platform for political activism and advocacy. Erika, you are a north star and I am your biggest fan! If you’re reading this, follow her and subscribe.

I’d also like to thank everyone for all the wonderful messages that have arrived from beyond our state. I couldn’t be more proud that our state led the charge.

For those of you watching on from outside, please know that the wave didn’t just include the marquee names like Talarico and Gina. Here in Houston, Democrats swept local offices as they did statewide offices. Dems even took the Texas house! Unbelievable!

It still feels surreal. But we will wake up to an empathy-, decency-, and intellectually driven government in January.

On Wednesday morning, Tracie and I both woke up before dawn and checked our phones to make sure we weren’t dreaming.

“Please go get some flags for our yard!” she said as she left the house.

When her mom called, she said “Tra, you must be on cloud 9 today!”

Tra’s answer? “Cloud 9? Cloud 10, 11, and 12!”

Thanks to everyone who stuck with us in this campaign and didn’t give up on what they thought was Blue America’s ugly stepchild. It turns out that we might just be home to its favorite daughters and sons.