Connor Halloran Phillips

Welcome! I am a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Political Science Department and Center for Effective Lawmaking at Vanderbilt University, after spending the 2023–2024 academic year as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Princeton University's Center for the Study of Democratic Politics. Beginning fall 2025, I will join the faculty at Carnegie Mellon University as an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Carnegie Institute for Strategy & Technology (CMIST).

My research examines interest groups, parties, legislatures, and elections in the US with a focus on how federalism shapes phenomena such as partisan polarization and voter participation. In my current work, I leverage interest groups' campaign contributions and ratings of state legislators to understand the strategies groups adopt in engaging with politics and to assess their role in promoting polarization at the state level. Beyond this project, some of my other research explores the impact of state and local electoral rules on voters' choices regarding party registration and turnout as well as how growing extremism in state legislatures influences the ideological positions of candidates for Congress. 

I received my Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University in 2023, where I was a Harvard Presidential Scholar. Prior to Harvard, I attended Duke University as an Angier B. Duke Memorial Scholar, graduating in 2017 with a B.A. in Political Science. In my spare time, I am an avid reader, dedicated runner, and long-suffering Pittsburgh Pirates fan.