GAITHERSBURG, Md. — After waiting two years for another shot at Congress and enduring a recent cancer scare, a little voting delay outside Maryland’s 6th District he will represent wasn’t a big deal to Democrat David Trone.

“Only through failure do we learn true empathy,” he told his supporters gathered in a Gaithersburg hotel Tuesday night, a reference to such setbacks, including his loss two years ago in a primary in the nearby 8th District to Jamie Raskin. This time around, Trone defeated Republican Amie Hoeber to punch his ticket to Capitol Hill. 

Despite an official closing time of 8 p.m. for voting, the Maryland Board of Elections put the kibosh on counties releasing the results for all races because some voters in Towson and Prince George’s County were still in line and thus permitted to vote, which took some time to finish up.

That meant the state did not put the results online until after 10 p.m. Several hundred supporters waited patiently at the hotel watching the national electoral results while munching on vegetable spring rolls and cheesecake drops along with three types of sliders.

When Trone finally spoke in the 10 o’clock hour after being introduced by the man he is going to replace in the House, Democrat John Delaney, he came into the ballroom to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ “I Won’t Back Down.”

Trone talked about fighting for “progressive values,” but he also touched on his three key themes: compassion, civility and competence. He added that “we have to stop throwing bombs at each other.”

He compared his recent announcement that he was cancer-free to when his family had to declare bankruptcy when he was a kid after the family farm went under and they had to start over. He said he didn’t see his cancer returning, and again had to start over and readjust his campaign. 

He also talked about how he was going to work for both Republicans and Democrats from all parts of the district, pointing to his get-out-the-vote strategy on Tuesday, starting in the district’s western neck in Republican-friendly but sparsely populated Garrett County and slowly moving east and south into the more Democratic-friendly and populous Frederick and Montgomery counties.