On Tuesday, the state I have called home for most of my 42 years in America elected Tommy Tuberville governor. A national civil rights group calls him an anti-Muslim extremist.

Election night, and the television is the only light in my living room. The map glows red and blue across the screen, states flickering like embers, and the anchors talk faster as the hours slip toward morning. My tea went cold an hour ago. I keep reaching for it anyway, the way you reach for the light switch in the dark.

Across the country, the tide runs blue. Democrats have won the House and the Senate. Here in Alabama, the tide runs crimson. Tuberville, the man who called my faith a “death cult” and urged America to “SEND THEM HOME NOW,” is headed to the governor’s mansion.

I turn off the television and lie in the dark. The ceiling fan turns slowly above the bed, stirring the cool November air. Two feelings share the pillow with me, and neither will let the other sleep. One is grief. The other, stubborn and almost giddy, is hope.

In his victory speech in Auburn, Tuberville told supporters, “Winning is a decision. And tonight, Alabama decided to win.” He promised to make downtown Montgomery safe “even if I have to put the National Guard on every damn corner.” He did not mention Muslims. There was no need. His record speaks loudly enough.

Doug Jones ran a decent, dignified race. Before it was called, he told supporters in Birmingham, “We have built something special that’s going to stay with us.”

Look closer at the map, and the crimson starts to fade. Four years ago, the Republican won the governor’s race by nearly 40 points. This time, the margin was about 4. Jones carried Mobile, Tuscaloosa and Madison counties, places Republicans won comfortably in recent statewide races. Even in Shelby County, a Republican stronghold, he came closer than anyone expected. Alabama is still red, but the color is draining toward purple.

What will the next four years look like for Muslims in Alabama, under a coach who has made us his opponent? I don’t know. I expect more speeches aimed at people with my name and my face. I expect a Muslim school to think twice about where it builds. I expect to explain, again and again, that the man who prays at dawn next door is a neighbor, not a threat.

But there is the other feeling, the one that kept nudging me awake. My voice did not change the outcome in Alabama, but it was counted, and across this beautiful country, millions of voices did change something. The pendulum swings. It swung Tuesday night, and in two years, it will swing again.

And then there is Michigan. Voters there elected Abdul El-Sayed, the son of Egyptian immigrants and a former Wayne County health director, as the first Muslim in the history of the U.S. Senate. On the same night that Alabama elected a governor who calls my faith a death cult, Michigan answered with a senator of the same faith. “We showed that in a battle between the money and the many that the many can win,” El-Sayed told supporters.

I voted on Tuesday, the way I have voted in every election since I became an American citizen. That is the gift of America, the one my father never had in Damascus. Here, we lose elections, but we never lose the ballot.

The sun is up now, pale gold through the blinds. My phone lights up with a text from my son: “Did you see Michigan?” I write back one word: “Senator.”

I’m bracing for four long years, Coach. But I’m bracing with a grin, and with a ballot. I’ve read your playbook, and I recognize the old schoolhouse-door play. Alabama ran it in 1963, and history called it a loss.