田纳西州众议院候任议员 Allie Phillips：亲历生活困境，让我理解民众的挣扎

November 12, 2026

Photo: Courtesy Allie Phillips

It’s pretty remarkable that Allie Phillips answers her own emails, given the mother of two—and newly elected Democratic member of the Tennessee House of Representatives—has been fielding media inquiries nonstop since last week’s midterm elections. In Nashville the weekend after her win, Phillips’s name was still plastered everywhere—from the Honky Tonk Highway entertainment district to the city’s oldest diner to venerable lesbian karaoke institution the Lipstick Lounge.

In an interview conducted over Zoom a few days later, I spoke to the staunch reproductive-rights advocate and self-described “regular, working-class mom” about turning trauma into action, campaigning while pregnant, and hitting the ground running with a full slate of legislative priorities. Read that conversation below.

Vogue: Congratulations! What did election night look like for you?

Allie Phillips: Election night had a pivot in it. I ended up having to leave the watch party for our county party and move over to another location because it was just so full. When I saw the early vote numbers hit, I was about 20% ahead, and within five minutes, a member of the Republican Party in Montgomery County called me and said, “Congratulations, Representative Phillips.” I was like, “None of the precincts have been reported yet,” and he said, “Your opponent would have to take 75% of the Election Day vote, and that’s just not going to happen, so congratulations.” I was like, “I’m going to wait until the last vote is counted, I don’t want to prematurely celebrate.”

I spent the night with amazing organizations like the Equity Alliance Fund, a Black-founded organization that works on expanding Black political engagement, and TIRRC, the Tennessee Immigrant & Refugee Rights Coalition. They contributed to so much of my election-night win—they knocked on over 30,000 doors in my district—so being able to celebrate with them was incredible. When we shifted the watch party to a different location, I stood up on a chair in a restaurant in heels, no podium, no microphone, no media, just me and the people that got me over the finish line, and gave my speech that I wrote. It was probably the most down-to-earth, authentic thing that I think could have happened. I wouldn’t change it for the world, because as stressful as it was to have to pivot in the middle of election night, I did what I needed to do as a leader. It was hectic and chaotic, but we got to celebrate together, and that’s what mattered.

Can you talk about the path that brought you to the Tennessee State House last week?

In 2023, I found out that my pregnancy was incompatible at my anatomy scan. I was almost 20 weeks pregnant, and Tennessee had just recently implemented its near-total abortion ban. Due to my daughter’s conditions, my doctor shared that the longer I stayed pregnant, the worse my health would become. I had a daughter at home already, so I didn’t want to put myself at risk. I had to start looking out-of-state for abortion care, and every state surrounding us is also an abortion-ban state, so we had to go even further.

When you have states like Tennessee and others with abortion bans, you have this influx of out-of-state patients bombarding these clinics that are the closest to them, right? So the wait lists were long. The airfare and travel expenses were costly, so I had to start a GoFundMe online because we couldn’t afford the trip to New York City, where we ended up finding a clinic. I went to that clinic 10 days after my high-risk appointment and found out that my daughter had passed in utero, and my body was not expelling her. The doctor said that because the last confirmed fetal heartbeat was almost two weeks ago, I was now at a greater risk of infections or blood clots or going septic, so essentially, we needed to do the procedure now. Within an hour of finding out that my daughter was gone, I was in a gown going into surgery, and I had to do all that alone. My husband wasn't allowed to be there with me. I’d never been in New York City and didn’t know these doctors from Adam, so that experience was very traumatizing.

When I got back home to Clarksville—after the postpartum black hole that I fell into—I was reached out to by the Center for Reproductive Rights, who asked if I’d be interested in joining a lawsuit against the state of Tennessee that was similar to the one in Texas with [Amanda] Zurawski. I don’t think I’ve said yes to anything quicker in my life. I was like, “Somebody has to do something, because this is atrocious and dehumanizing.” The government made me feel like I was gum under their shoe.

I joined the lawsuit, and now I’m the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit. It’s still ongoing three years later. I have not had the opportunity to testify in a trial because the state keeps moving it, but I knew that would take a while. I knew there wasn’t going to be a decision made by the end of the year, so I went and met with my representative at the time, Jeff Burkhart, and shared with him that I wanted help with the Miley’s Law legislation that I wrote that would give exceptions for fatal fetal anomalies. He said he would help me get it up to the General Assembly, but he never did, and then I got sick and tired of waiting around for him to help me and decided that I would just run against him so I could do it myself.

I had no idea what I was doing. I’d never been involved in politics other than voting, and that was, like, presidential elections. I joined my county party and put my hat in for the race, and I ran a 13-month campaign. We raised over half a million dollars, which is unheard of for a Democrat running in deep red Tennessee for a State House office. I had donations from all 50 states. The news coverage of my race was just insane, and unfortunately we still lost, but I took over 45% of the vote. I was pregnant at the end of that campaign. The first three months of my pregnancy were the most grueling three months of the election, August to November.

Being pregnant in August in Tennessee doesn’t sound easy.

Yeah. It was hot and I was super nauseous and I still had to go out and knock on doors. But I did what I needed to do, and then went off to have my son on April 17, 2025, and was still involved. I was pregnant going to marches and stuff, like, you ain’t stopping me. Then I took a little hiatus for that summer. When I came back to work, I started getting more involved again, and then my opponent [Burkhart] died and there was an appointment to his seat, and so I put my name in for the appointment. Our county commission went through five rounds of voting, ended in a tie between me and Michael Lankford, the Republican, and the mayor gave his deciding vote to Michael Lankford, so Michael Lankford was appointed to the seat. He served this last session, so I ran against him this year. We went from being 45% of the vote in 2024 to taking 55% of the vote this year, which was not what we were anticipating. We thought I might win by a couple of hundred votes, maybe, and I think we took it by about 1,600.

Wow.

I think it says a lot about the dynamic of voters and where they’re sitting with parties right now, because I can tell you, the majority of those voters were not Democrats. There were independents, there were Republicans, and I think that’s incredible. We really had a message of putting working families first; like, I’m a mom of two, I come to work in Nashville every day, my husband works the night shift because we can’t afford childcare, and we do what we have to do to get by. I’m not some wealthy lawyer or entrepreneur with my own business who’s like, Oh, sure, I can be a lawmaker, too. I’m just a regular working-class mom, and I think people want to see more of that in their government. They saw their families in me. They saw themselves in me. I think that’s what made the difference this time versus in the last election, which was just, Oh, she’s all about abortion. What else is she running on? I was like, “A lot of things!” Nobody wanted to talk about them, though, because everybody wants to talk about my story.

Can you tell me a bit about the district you’re now representing?

I am in District 75, which is the western portion of Clarksville. It’s Montgomery County, and the Tennessee portion of the Fort Campbell military base is in my district. Outside of Clarksville’s city limits, we have a lot of really rural farm areas, and that makes this district really unique because we have so much agriculture, and then you come into Clarksville and it’s kind of urban and suburban, a little bit of both. With it being a military town, people are coming and going all the time, so in a small rural district, you might run for office once and then run again and knock the same doors and meet the same people, but in the four years that I’ve lived in Clarksville, I’ve only had one neighbor stay the same. You have people stationed here for a year, 18 months, six months. The doors I knocked in ’24 who supported me, those people aren’t there anymore. It’s different people. A lot of the people that are here don’t vote here, they vote back home or they don’t register to vote at all because they move so much. Clarksville has a university, Austin Peay State University, that’s not in my district; it's in the district next to mine. But there are college students that live in my district, so it’s a double-edged sword. We love the college and we love the military, but it makes it really difficult to navigate the demographic of the voters because they change so often.

What do you think has most prepared you to hold your current office?

I think it’s the experiences that I’ve been through. I grew up in a lower-income family in the small town of Ashland City in Cheatham County. My dad was a construction worker, my mom went to college to become a paralegal, and we didn’t have a lot of money. Growing up, I was taught, You work for the things you want, period. You don’t ask for handouts. Then I went to school to get a bachelor’s degree in multimedia journalism.

Growing up and watching my parents struggle, and then becoming a mother myself and seeing how difficult it is just to be able to afford formula, food, diapers, toys… Everything my daughter had was handed down to us or found on Facebook Marketplace. The older I got, the more I learned that a lot of this is policy. Our General Assembly has refused to cut the grocery tax. We’re one of 13 states that still has one, and it’s at nine and a half percent. We’re paying more for what? People shouldn’t have to struggle to get access to a healthcare professional to get their medication. That’s a policy decision. They could expand Medicaid, but they won’t. Our roads shouldn’t have potholes every quarter-foot or have you sitting in traffic for three hours a day. We could invest in mass transit, but they won’t. I was a single mom for the first three years of my daughter’s life. I was working three jobs while going to college full-time. So knowing and seeing and living the struggle helps me understand the struggle. I’m not a single mom anymore, but we still struggle. If you don’t live this, you don’t understand it. This is nothing against my opponent [Lankford], but we’re both 31 and he’s not married, he doesn’t have any kids, and he lives on property owned by his family.

It’s a different experience.

Completely. He’s a senior banker or something like that, but has he had to serve tables before and rely on tips to pay his bills? He’s never had to worry about getting his children to daycare so he can get to work, and he’s never had to figure out, Well, my kids are sick, so they can’t go to daycare, and now I’ve got to call out of work. My lived experiences are what made me feel qualified for this, because to be a representative is to represent the people, and I grew up seeing what hard work looks like.

What other races were you excited about or watching closely last Tuesday?

The top three races in Tennessee that we were looking to flip were mine, Jesse Huseth down in Memphis, and Brian Goldberg out in Knoxville. I was really curious to know if they were winning voters, and they did. They flipped their seats, and we flipped three additional seats that we weren’t really honed in on. I was disappointed that Jerri Green didn’t win against Marsha Blackburn, but I’m extremely proud of her for how close she got and the campaign that she ran. I was also disappointed in the congressional races that we were looking at with Justin Pearson, Chaz Mulder, and Darden Copeland, but I was very proud of Victoria Broderick for flipping her seat. That’s why you don’t underestimate women; we just show up out of nowhere sometimes! All in all, I’m fairly happy. We have 11 new Democrats going into the House, and I think the chairman said this is the biggest freshman class since either the ’80s or the ’90s. It’s really exciting for Democrats in the state and hopefully gives people more hope that we will continue moving forward.

What’s first on your docket, legislation-wise?

Well, priority number one is my district, always. But as far as legislation, I mentioned Miley’s Law. Outside of reproductive access, I ran my campaign on affordability for working families, so I would love to carry a bill about cutting the tax on diapers and potentially formula. If we can cut the grocery tax, the formula tax goes away, because formula is taxed with our food percentage. I want to cut property taxes for veterans—they served our country, give them a break—and then there was one about creating a lottery for a Tennessee fund for veterans, specifically, that would give them additional help with finding things like healthcare access, mental healthcare, housing, jobs, whatever it may be. My district is so military-heavy that supporting them is so important to me. I plan to be a strong advocate against school vouchers; I am wholeheartedly for fully funding our public schools. I want to make sure our schools are fully funded and that teachers are paid what they’re worth and kids are eating in school, and that we’re not funding private entities with public dollars.

Last question: How are you celebrating your big win and new role?

There really hasn’t been any opportunity to celebrate. I’m still trying to respond to text messages from election night. [Laughs.] I was put on payroll at midnight after the election, so it’s been go-go-go since, but I can tell you that I’m able to sleep better knowing that I’m not stressed out so much by the election. My oldest daughter, who’s nine, was missing me a lot during the campaign, so she's like, “Do you actually get to be home now?” I was like, “Uh, kind of.” She’s my biggest supporter.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

• Listen to The Run-Through with Vogue, a weekly podcast featuring the most exciting stories and hot takes from the worlds of culture, politics, sports and–of course–fashion

• The Vogue Runway app has expanded! Update to the latest version to see all Vogue content, as well as new features like our Runway Genius quiz, Group Chats, and posts from Vogue contributors.

Emma Specter is the Culture Writer at Vogue, where she covers film, TV, books, politics, news, and (almost) anything queer. She has previously worked at Garage and LAist and has freelanced for outlets including The Hairpin, Bon Appetit, them, The Hollywood Reporter, and more. Her first book, More Please: On ... Read More