Stacey Abrams, the runner up in the Georgia gubernatorial race, delivered the Democrat response to President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address.

As a black woman who came close to victory in a red state the choice of Abrams was both a nod to diversity that Democrats seek to highlight and to the party’s future.

Abrams delivered her response minutes after the president’s speech but she barely addressed anything the president mentioned in his speech.

She started with a touching story of her dad helping someone less fortunate when she was a child.

“Growing up, my family went back and forth between lower middle class and working poor,” she said.

“Yet, even when they came home weary and bone-tired, my parents found a way to show us all who we could be. My librarian mother taught us to love learning. My father, a shipyard worker, put in overtime and extra shifts; and they made sure we volunteered to help others. Later, they both became United Methodist ministers, an expression of the faith that guides us,” she said.

“Now, we only had one car, so sometimes my dad had to hitchhike and walk long stretches during the 30 mile trip home from the shipyards. One rainy night, Mom got worried. We piled in the car and went out looking for him – and eventually found Dad making his way along the road, soaked and shivering in his shirtsleeves. When he got in the car, Mom asked if he’d left his coat at work. He explained he’d given it to a homeless man he’d met on the highway. When we asked why he’d given away his only jacket, Dad turned to us and said, ‘I knew when I left that man, he’d still be alone. But I could give him my coat, because I knew you were coming for me,” Abrams said.

She complained that “Republican tax bill rigged the system against working people. Rather than bringing back jobs, plants are closing, layoffs are looming and wages struggle to keep pace with the actual cost of living.”

Abrams said that Republicans should take an approach to healthcare that fixes, not destroys, Obamacare.

Still, she said while she disagrees with the president on his policies “I still don’t want him to fail. But we need him to tell the truth, and to respect his duties and the extraordinary diversity that defines America.”