New hampshire democrats, please welcome to the stage chairman ray buckley. 2018 is coming. Yesterday we launched a project to keep sununu accountable. His friends on corporate specialinterest. Of his phony doublespeak. Were calling them out. Our focus is five key issues. And we cant hold them accountable alone. We need your help. Check onnu reality facebook, go to our website, sununuoner new realitycheck. Com. In 2016. Unu won by 2 lets get to work. Everyone clear with our focuses . Focus is . In the next 11 months . That we joined by congas men and president ial candidate john delaney. Congressman tim ryan. My good friend, congresswoman and vice chair. Congressman andy custer. Tonight dinner is a chance to pause and reflect on the year we have had. New hampshire democrats have a lot to celebrate. The first all democratic, allfemale congressional delegation in history. Incredibly important battles to protect the progress we have concorda showing up in across the state and no cross the country. And across the country. This year we have won eight out of 10 special elections. Five and republican districts. Senate election victory since 1984. We have won special elections across the state. Sherpa county, and rockingham county. Put, there is no district that a democratic candidate who works hard cant win in 2018. Be enough to celebrate, but its not all we did. This november, we broke records across the state in our incredible municipal victories. The first elected mayor in manchester first elected women marrying manchesters history. Woman mayor in manchesters history. [applause] her victory lifted from red to blue since 2003. And in nashua. Sweet nashua. We pulled off a queen a clean a,ep thanks to dave kens shoshana kelly, and brandon laws. Shoshana kelly and linda became the firstever women of color. Lected to the National Board now think about this. Nashua had a today republican mayor and havent had one for 25 years. On thepublican majority alderman and school board members. Have overwhelming majority on both. Lets here for the national see democrats. And jerry cannon became the memberver school board congratulations. Its been a long time coming. And Jeremy Hutchison became the counselor lgbtq city in rochester history. And openly gay rochester mayor Dana Hilliard was reelected to his third term. Berlin mayor paul grenier was reelected to a record fifth consecutive term. Concord mayor jim bouley was elected to a record sixth consecutive term. Election night was a historic night of record of 110 women, Young Democrats, persons of color, the lgbtq community, and a great night for democrats. But folks, we have a lot to accomplish. We need to make chris sununu a one term governor. [applause] we need to hold on to the first and second congressional districts. We need to win majorities on the council, the senate, and the house. Democrats, with our success of 2017, we have the team, the energy, and attitude to win in 2018. So lets go do it. [applause] so there is another line here that they added in since i last saw it. I was reading it and i was thinking, there is another line. The line is for all of you wonderful yankees this will be the best line of the night please dont forget, take the pumpkins at the conclusion of the program. The centerpieces are yours. [applause] we have got a full program tonight, but i want to start and take a moment to acknowledge our fantastic staff. Our executive director, amy kennedy. [applause] Communications Director wyatt roden. Political director aaron trammell. Finance director dallas thompson. Operations director peter kramer. Communications assistant sarah guggenheim. Er. Deputy political advisor donald stokes. County organizer aaron cotton. Grassroots coordinator. Deputy Operations Director ethan moorhouse. Our phenomenal intern. And lets also acknowledge our house and Senate Caucus director nick taylor. The house and Senate Caucus finance director, michael kennedy. And the New HampshireYoung Democrats executive director, representative amelia keane. [applause] we are so lucky and so proud to have the best damn party staff in the country. Lets take a moment to acknowledge our officers. First vice chair, senator martha fuller clark. Our second vice chair. Our secretary. Our treasurer brian mast. Legal counsel bill christie. Finance chair katie wheeler. Dnc woman county sullivan. Cathy sullivan. Dnc man bill shaheen. And dnc atlarge member joann dardell. [applause] thank you, everyone. Lets have a great night. [applause] New Hampshire democrats, to lead us in the pledge of allegiance, please welcome the newly elected atlarge members of the nashua board of aldermen, shoshanna kelly, dave tencza, and brandon laws. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of america, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. [applause] New Hampshire democrats, please welcome to the stage manchesters mayor elect, joyce craig. The manchester folks are the loudest. I am honored to welcome you here tonight as the mayor elect of manchester and as the first woman elected to lead the queen city. It is so wonderful to be here with all of you. So many of you joined the hundreds of manchester residents in knocking on thousands of doors, making phone calls, sharing our campaigns message with your friends, neighbors, colleagues. Your work over the many months really make the difference, and i will forever be grateful for your support. I want to offer a special thank you to Senators Hassan and shaheen and congresswoman kuster and sheaporter for their support and encouragement. New hampshire has led the way in demonstrating that we all do well when women serve in leadership roles, and i am thankful [applause] ms. Craig i am so thankful to have four outstanding role models. And thank you to chairman buckley and the staff for your support of the campaign and for organizing tonights festivities. I would also like to thank congressmen delaney and ryan for their support during our campaign, and also congresswoman meng for being with us tonight. While im extremely proud of our efforts to bring change to city hall, i know the real work begins now. As mayor, i will focus on improving our schools, making our streets safer, bringing businesses to our cities, and making real and lasting progress against the opioid crisis. [applause] thank you. Manchesters best days are still ahead of us, and i hope you all will join me in building a Better Future for the people of manchester, because we all know that when manchester prospers, so does the rest of our great state. Thank you all, and i look forward to this wonderful evening. [applause] New Hampshire democrats, please welcome to the stage congresswoman carol sheaporter. [applause] it is i who have to thank all of you. I am so grateful for the gift that you gave me to serve New Hampshire and all the help that came from across the state over and over again. So i want to thank all of you and say we are not done yet. We are not done. We have a lot of work to do. You heard what the chairman had to say. I am sitting here with some wonderful colleagues and i know we are going to turn this around in 2018. A full reckoning is coming soon, very soon. When i decided to run in 2006, i said i was running for the rest of us. Throughout the time, we have had different slogans that we have used, keeping that, for the rest of us, the bottom 99 . Then it started to be serious since donald trump came. So i started running through some slogans that would help me every single day. One of them was from Winston Churchill, very helpful lately. He said when you are going through hell, just keep going. He said a number of things like that. Then i started thinking of my own slogans, because we have to stick together. We have shown what we do when we stick together. We have done great things and we will continue to do great things. But sometimes there are things we dont like, somebody said this or thinks that or something out of washington. So now when i look at myself in the mirror every morning, i say to myself, shut up and row. [laughter] thats at least my message right now. We are confronted with a president we never could have imagined. We would have laughed about it and said it is not possible in this country. We are confronted with an administration and a president the challenges all of us. Thing is we are a very good people and we know what we need to do. And we are organized every day. Greatnesday i had the privilege of hearing tony bennett, and he received a reward for music. 91 years old. He came out running faster than joyce and i did. When it was time for him to give , he just stood there i wasnt prepared, america is the greatest country in the world, and that is the best speech i have ever heard. Because that is who we are, that is what we are. We will overcome this. Together and when we get to shore, and we will, we can pull out and say should we go left or right. We will get ourselves out of this. Joyce, i cant tell you if i didnt have a wonderful mayor in rochester, i would be looking to move to manchester. We have everything we need, New HampshireYoung Democrats, which have done tremendous work. We see the deep bench. I love the candidates running in my seat, i think it is awesome and i think it will help amplify our message and the rest of our state will be able to hear what we stand for, because we know what we stand against. We stand against tyranny. He stand against the construction of the administrative state. We stand against the violation of Human Dignity and rights and all that. But we also stand for economic security. We stand for advantage for everybody, fairness, supporting business and families and individuals. We have something we can be very proud of. We have a marquee that has all of our good stuff on it. Now we just need to stand together and put this message out across our state. We will win. We will win, and we will win because we have something they dont have. We are right. We are on the right side of history. [applause] rep. Sheaporter no question about it. And people are realizing that around the country. They are realizing that this agenda is the agenda that will help lift them and their families. So i just want to say thank you for your confidence in me and the hard work that you have done and say im not going away. I plan to be very involved. We will get through 2018, and then, we all have a really big lift, which is called the 2020 president ial election. We will get it done right here in New Hampshire. Thank you, everybody. I love all of you, and i am so grateful. Thank you. [applause] New Hampshire democrats, please welcome to the stage former nhdp chair Kathy Sullivan. [cheers and applause] girl is on fire this girl is on fire [applause] ms. Sullivan i know, i came on stage before they did my walk on music, i was so anxious. I want to say a few things about carol sheaporter, because she was my congresswoman, and i was always so proud to have csp as my congresswoman. [applause] ms. Sullivan every vote she took was always the right vote. And she was always there, as she said, fighting for the rest of us. She i remember the first time i met carol, she came to my office and talked about running for congress. I was quite impressed. And at that point, she had stood up and protested the policies of george w. Bush. [applause] ms. Sullivan she went to geoff rileys town halls, knew his record better than he did, and was able to ask him the pointed question that drove him crazy. But one thing i will always remember about carol sheaporter is she made me cry once. She may not know this story, but a lot of people do because some of you were there when this happened. It was the night of the election 2006, when she was running for congress the first time. And i was in manchester at the coordinated campaign headquarters. And, you know people say, you , must have known you were going to have a good night. No, i always think we are going to lose. I had a good feeling about john lynch, ok . But other than that and judy and i had been driving around all day going to different goals. At one point i called to headquarters and said, hows it looking . And mike and nick were like, the turnout is not the way it should be in some of the districts. I was like, i knew it. I knew it. Course, it was really the best night of my political life, because we came from losing badly in 2002 to coming back in 2004. And then 2006, the results are coming in and we are all , standing there, and the numbers are coming up, this town, that town. John lynch was winning, things were looking good, some senate races, we are all feeling really good. But things in the First District, a little close. And then epping came in, and carol won epping. And i started crying. Paul was there and he was like, i am going to take a picture of you crying, and i was like, get that camera away from me. I am crying because when carol won epping, i knew she was going to be our congresswoman, and i knew we were winning everything that night. And that is the night that carol sheaporter made me cry, because she took epping. And she has been, through her career political career, one of , the most courageous people you could ask for. When she [applause] sullivan i mean this is , someone who no secret when she ran for congress, people were like, i dont know about this. People in washington were not necessarily supportive. But she came out and surprised the heck out of everybody and won that primary and said and then won the general election, was reelected, and then lost a race in a republican wave year. But she came back. She came back. She did not give up. She came back, and she ran again. When we had another republican and then, wave year and her opponent lied about her and ran a tv ad lying about her and unfortunately defeated her, she came back again. She didnt she never said, im done in the light of events where some people might have said, i have done enough. But she always came back and picked herself up. It is not just because of the work she did in congress for veterans and the middle class and working people, but also because she just always came back and fought back. That is why i am so proud to give you and im going to cry again because im going to miss you the Kathy Sullivan courage award, because you deserve it, congresswoman. [applause] rep. Sheaporter thank you. I just said to kathy, i wondered why you kept talking about me. Thank you very much. I am so honored. What Kathy Sullivan does not say about herself is there might be a tougher irish woman around, but i dont think so. And thank you,y, everybody. I am so honored. [applause] New Hampshire democrats, please welcome to the stage congresswoman grace meng. Tonight is the night we will fight till its over put your hands up like the city cant hold us like the city cant hold us [applause] rep. Meng thanks, ray. Good evening, everyone. It is great to be in the granite state. For dialing the temperature up 10 degrees for me. Thank you, chairman buckley, for your wonderful welcome to this great state and for your wonderful welcome and your friendship. It truly means the world to me. Ray is one of the reasons i was elected to be a vice chair of the dnc. On a good dnc newsday, im so thankful to him. Thank you for your friendship. It truly means the world to me. Ray is one of the reasons i was elected to be the vicechairman of the dnc. On a good dnc newsday, i am so thank all to him. [laughter] which means on most a of the year, i am not. [laughter] but in all seriousness, it means the world to me to share the stage this evening with three of the four great women who represent the great state of New Hampshire. You have heard lots already tonight about congresswoman carol sheaporter, who was my classmate as well going to congress. And she gives a new meaning, as you know more than anyone else, phrase never give up and always keep getting up. Thank you for your service. [applause] to senator maggie hassan, who has broken so many barriers, not just for women but for all americans. She only saves health care for the whole country. [applause] meng and in my closest friends in congress, also my, classmate congresswoman annie custer. [applause] rep. Meng who really has no ego and the fights that she leads in congress whether it is working , on Workforce Development for combating opioid abuse and Sexual Harassment in the workplace. Nie just gets it done and never cares about whether her name is on the bill or news conference. [applause] rep. Meng im also honored to be here with two of my colleagues and friends, congressman john delaney and congressman tim ryan and his wife, as well. [applause] rep. Meng right now, the National Media is still focused on a Democratic Victory that occurred in virginia recently. But we know that the victory of 2017 began right here in New Hampshire. [applause] rep. Meng and continue to happen, winning eight special s,ections in four trie electing the mayor of manchester. Congratulations, joyce, and averaging 53 of the votes in districts where republicans have a registration advantage is incredible no matter what state you are from. Now, i will be honest. We know the path were taking in congress in 2018 and in the white house in 2020 will not be an easy one. Just as the wins we witnessed here in New Hampshire and recently in virginia were not easy. Wins were the result of days, months, and years of hard work, often unseen and underappreciated. Added is that same dedication that will make future victories possible, and, frankly, to each of you here tonight, i say now more than ever, we need to continue to fight, to fight on behalf of every single american. And that is part of our partys message, that we do fight for everyone. No one gets left out. Winning races is a great feeling, but ensuring our areow citizens concerns heard in the policy