I was honored to be re-elected with a 13% margin of victory last night, in an electoral environment in which some 20 or more of my Democratic colleagues in the House were defeated. Greeting voters at the polls yesterday, I heard from many voters who are frustrated with single party rule in Washington D.C. and voted a straight Republican ticket, but went out of their way to cross over in my race to vote for me. I am deeply appreciative of the breadth of support I received in this election, and will continue to strive to represent to the best of my ability the broad and diverse coalition that supported me.

I owe many thanks to many people, but specifically want to thank those of you who contributed your time, energy or money to my campaign, and those who lent your names to an endorsement letter or walked blocks and stood at polling places to help voters see this campaign in a different light from the national elections.

And I have to share with you two funny stories about my family. The first is about my wife Crystal. This was the first time Crystal was able to engage in the campaign with me, because in each of my previous campaigns she was still working as a journalist. As the negative ads against me started appearing on TV, Crystal volunteered to record the voiceover for our response ad - and it may have been the most sincere, heartfelt, and effective voiceover in the history of television advertising. Advice to future opponents: don't mess with the mama grizzly.

The other story is about my Dad's sunburn. For the past two weeks my Mom and Dad have walked blocks and stood at polling places for hours on end. We were never entirely sure how much the national trends would affect this campaign, so I admit I was pretty greedy in taking advantage of their help. Both of them insisted on working polls from open to close yesterday, and my Dad, who is fair-skinned, forgot to wear sunblock. Today he is scorched like a lobster. At 6 p.m., when it had started raining pretty hard yesterday, I finally begged him to call it a day, and only prevailed by quoting John Kennedy, who joked that his father sent him a telegram during one of his campaigns that said "Dear Jack, Don't buy a single vote more than is necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide." Thanks, Mom and Dad, for the "landslide."

Finally, a word about the general results last night. This was the third consecutive election in which voters repudiated the party in power at a national level. In all three elections, it has been pretty clear that many voters have been voting against the party in power, rather than for the party that is challenging. This should be humbling to everyone who holds elected office and the public trust. It suggests that we all need to work harder to earn the confidence and faith of the voters. And it suggests that something about our system of politics is not serving the public well - which is why I will continue to advocate for reforms to our redistricting and campaign finance system. A representative democracy should not be characterized by such animus towards and frustration with our elected representatives.