{"id":324245,"date":"2025-10-22T16:22:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-22T16:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/324245\/"},"modified":"2025-10-22T16:22:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-22T16:22:09","slug":"dallas-mom-and-former-chef-running-for-house-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/324245\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas Mom and Former Chef Running for House Seat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Allison Mitchell was a chef in Napa Valley, working in the kitchens of some of the most prestigious restaurants with menus full of foods that are difficult to pronounce<\/a> and too intimidating to ask how. Then she became a luxury handbag designer with a showroom in New York City, a feature in Vogue and a calendar full of late-night calls with European artisans. But now, Mitchell, who looks like a typical Northwest Dallas mom on her way to grab the kids from school, is parked outside early voting locations, with an explainer sheet on the 17 propositions Texas voters will see on their uniform election ballot and a sign that says \u201cAll in for Allison.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Mitchell launched her campaign as the Democratic candidate for House District 108<\/a>, which represents the Park Cities and parts of Richardson in the Texas House of Representatives. Without any political experience or even a law degree, Mitchell isn\u2019t scared. She says she\u2019s done hard things before, and she plans on doing them again.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I decided to run for this, I already knew that [politics] was a tough world, but I\u2019ve been tested already in those ways,\u201d she said. \u201cI just didn\u2019t see it as a problem, and I could be really useful in the Texas Legislature.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitchell is running uncontested for the Democratic nomination as of right now. However, that could change at any minute, and the primary election isn\u2019t until March. Now, she\u2019s creating political education content for her 17,000 followers on social media, bolstering her support but, more importantly, spreading awareness.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The bipartisan-focused videos have garnered significant attention. Maybe it\u2019s because Mitchell\u2019s delivery is palatable and organic, or maybe it\u2019s because algorithms like beautiful women. She isn\u2019t sure which is true, but regardless, it\u2019s a tool in her kit and something to leverage before she has to kick into high gear next year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to use what your mom gave you,\u201d she said while discussing \u201cpretty privilege,\u201d a societal bias for people who fit within the conventional beauty standard. \u201cBut it\u2019s a different world for women. We are living in a different reality than men.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Feminine Experience Led To Politics<\/p>\n

Currently, the House is made up of 64% men, at a time when women\u2019s healthcare rights in Texas are the most restricted they\u2019ve been in decades.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government should never be a decision maker in the health care of anybody between a patient and their physician,\u201d she said. \u201c\u2026 The government has no business telling a woman when she can get an abortion or whether she can get one at all. Men feel entitled to prioritize women\u2019s health, to weigh in on this. They don\u2019t have that entitlement. We do.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But it isn\u2019t the state of reproductive rights that spurred her into action; it was motherhood.<\/p>\n

Mitchell, a Hockaday graduate, has a six-year-old daughter enrolled in the Dallas Independent School District and a four-year-old son with autism who is non-verbal. When Gov. Greg Abbott greenlit school vouchers<\/a> earlier this year, she decided enough was enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of people say they\u2019re surprised that my issue is public education because I come from private education,\u201d she said. \u201cBut what I say to them is, I was very lucky. I got an incredible education. I had a lot of opportunities at my fingertips, and I was very lucky. Seeing that it is not available to all children, it is wrong.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mitchell says programs for special education children are likely to be the first affected as public schools lose taxpayer funding to the voucher system.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cGood education should be available to all children. Texas is in the bottom half of education. We\u2019re also one of the wealthiest states with the most uninsured, with the least funded schools, and there\u2019s no reason why we can\u2019t change that.\u201d <\/p>\n

HD 108 hosts some of the wealthiest families, who can afford several thousand dollars in private education tuition. But Mitchell hopes the voucher issue can be the breaking point for voters on the edge.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of [voters in HD 108] are really unhappy with the voucher legislation that [their representative] voted for,\u201d she said. \u201cThey\u2019re very willing to be issue voters instead of party affiliation. We have a unique opportunity in this cycle, because of Trump, because of Abbott, because of the extremism, to peel away his base.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

HD 108\u2019s Republican History<\/p>\n

HD 108 has been represented by Rep. Morgan Meyer, a \u201clife-long conservative\u201d in the middle of his sixth term. He hasn\u2019t announced a bid for re-election, but if he did, he would likely be tough to beat. Meyer has triumphed over Democratic opponents in the last two elections by wide margins.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

But Mitchell is hoping that the blue voters within the district will rise to the occasion, or at the very least, historically red voters will stray from their party affiliation based on Meyer\u2019s voting history at the House.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In the last session, Meyer co-sponsored divisive GOP bills, like one that made Ivermectin<\/a>, traditionally a horse dewormer and touted as a COVID-19 cure by conspiracy theorists, an over-the-counter pharmaceutical for human consumption. He also co-sponsored a bill that allows private citizens to sue abortion pill manufacturers and distributors. But Mitchell questions whether his and other Republicans\u2019 compliance with the hard-right figureheads is what the people of the district want.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything that happens in the Texas legislature is just an extension of the Trump administration,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

HD 108 is not just the Park Cities, though. Sure, that\u2019s where the money is, and those voters are powerful, but they aren\u2019t the only voters in the large district.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Park Cities are not the only neighborhoods in this district,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have so many blue neighborhoods in 108. It\u2019s just because the wealth is concentrated there and the spotlight is concentrated there that people think this is a super, super hard district to win. And it is. But there are so many others who vote.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

As of right now, Mitchell will continue to make videos for her social media page, camp outside polling places and pick up her kids from school, all while strategizing for the impending election.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need fresh energy from younger candidates,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s the answer to get the Democrats who are just so tired of losing all the time in this district, in this state, get excited about coming out to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Allison Mitchell was a chef in Napa Valley, working in the kitchens of some of the most prestigious…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":324246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[3789,9600,5229,1596,358,7376,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-324245","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-abortion","9":"tag-activism","10":"tag-america","11":"tag-dallas","12":"tag-texas","13":"tag-texas-legislature","14":"tag-tx","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115418742474380797","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}