When Teri Mai got involved in the Williamson County Democratic Party, she hoped to meet a candidate to support in state House District 92 — someone who could challenge Republican incumbent Rep. Todd Warner. After looking around, party members suggested she look in the mirror.
It’s a similar story for other Middle Tennessee candidates including Alison Beale, Claire Jones, Laura Andreson and Ailina Carona. They were each spurred into advocacy work by a combination of Tennessee’s strict abortion ban and the deadly March 2023 shooting at Nashville’s Covenant School. Then they became disillusioned by Tennessee lawmakers doubling down on lax gun laws and refusing to widen exceptions for abortion. So they put their name in the ring to replace those lawmakers.
The veil was lifted, says Beale, who is challenging Rep. Johnny Garrett (R-Goodlettsville) as a Democrat in House District 45. Her origin story is the bulletproof backpack she bought her preschool-age daughter in the days following the Covenant shooting. But that wasn’t the first time she’d been touched by gun violence. A former teacher, she taught fellow candidate Shaundelle Brooks’ younger son the year after his brother was killed in Nashville’s Waffle House shooting.
“I was one of so many parents who were just grasping at straws, just trying to find an element of control because we were all so terrified to send our kids to school,” Beale says. “And our legislature wasn’t doing anything about it. … If kids getting killed at school isn’t enough to move them to action, then nothing will, and we have to vote them out.”
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Brooks is currently running for the Democratic nomination in Nashville’s House District 60.
“I saw my son in the casket, and I said, right then, I would do everything in my power to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Brooks recently told the Scene for a previous story. “It has to start with background checks — those are the foundation of stricter gun laws — to make sure people are mentally stable enough to carry.”
Jones, like many others among the slate of new candidates, lives at an intersection of causes — a woman in her reproductive years with school-age children. She also experienced gun violence when her former co-worker was shot and killed in a road rage incident in December 2020. She’s running in the Democratic primary and calls the House District 61 incumbent, Rep. Gino Bulso (R-Brentwood), “one of the most dangerous people in the legislature.”
“All the things I’m running on — education, health care, women’s reproductive rights and gun violence — all of those are directly affecting my life right now,” says Jones.
Andreson, an OB-GYN, became a familiar face in protests against the reversal of Roe v. Wade. She joined a lawsuit against the state of Tennessee asking for clarity on when exactly the mother’s life is considered in danger — one of the few instances in which an abortion is legal.
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She told a friend involved in the Williamson County Democratic Party that she’d like to run, but not for a couple of years. Ultimately, Andreson was persuaded that the time is now to challenge Rep. Jake McCalmon (R-Franklin) in House District 63.
“As an OB, I was always a little fearful that the anti-abortion folks [will] come after people,” Andreson tells the Scene. “I’ve always been a little bit guarded. … But when this happened, I was so upset that I had missed so many opportunities to advocate for Roe, to not let Roe fall. I just feel like I missed my mark on that, and I feel like if I don’t do it, if I don’t take the steps and try to make change, I will regret it the rest of my life.”
There’s momentum across the state, especially for women running for the first time. Clarksville Democrat Allie Phillips, Andreson’s co-plaintiff, announced her campaign for House District 75 back in October, inspired by her life-threatening pregnancy. Gun safety advocate Maryam Abolfazli is running as a Democrat for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District, a seat currently held by far-right Republican Rep Andy Ogles. First-time candidates are the norm on Tennessee Advocates for Planned Parenthood’s endorsement list. The organization recently announced it would invest in candidates rather than lobbying.
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Mai says it’s a conscious strategy of the Tennessee Democratic Party to leave no Republican unopposed. House District 57 incumbent Rep. Susan Lynn (R-Mt. Juliet) ran unopposed in 2022 before Carona stepped up, and Beale’s opponent Garrett went unopposed in the 2022 and 2020 elections. Beale says having a Democrat on the ballot will allow the party to measure how much support could live in a given district. The district she’s running in looks deep red, but she says she knows that’s not true — it’s just 20 minutes from downtown Nashville.
“There are so many things that are lacking within the foundation of Democratic politics in Tennessee,” Beale says. “This is exciting, to have this wave of self-activated first-time candidates who are serious about it and are going to give their all to running a race, because I think we’re going to get a lot of valuable data. I think we’re going to get a lot of momentum, and it’s going to start this big wave of change.”
Recruiting and organizing group Emerge Tennessee has been pushing for this very trend — Democratic women running for office. Beale, Jones, Phillips, Brooks and Carona are beneficiaries. The organization offers training for women interested in running for office, but also prepares them for the at-home challenges. Running for a state office requires job flexibility and financial stability, which executive director Freda Player points out is even harder to achieve for women and people of color. Beale, Jones and Carona all have young children.
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“They say a woman, you have to ask seven times before they say yes to run, compared to a man, you have to ask once,” Player says. “For the women, it’s really like, ‘Can my partner or spouse take responsibilities? Are they willing to do a lot of the domestic work and child-rearing work, knowing that they’re going to be working as a single parent for the next 60 to 90 days?’”
Carona thinks she’ll stay involved in politics and activism after this election, regardless of the outcome.
“It’s been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, outside of birthing a child,” she says. “I have three kids, and after the first one, I swore I’d never do it again, because it was so hard. And then I had two more. I kind of feel the same way about the campaign. … Women are made for a capacity for pain that is so much more than men, and I think that can transfer into all areas of our life.”
