When a member of the Lee County Democrats reached out to her on New Year’s Day, Mallory Hagan thought it was the same old thing.

“I genuinely thought that they were going to ask me to endorse a candidate because I’ve been asked to do that before,” Hagan, former Miss America, said in an interview today with Yellowhammer News.

“She said ‘no no no, we want you to run.’”

Hagan launched her campaign for Alabama’s 3rd congressional district on February 6.

Unseating popular Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Saks), who was first elected in 2002, will be a long shot.

Rogers has been reelected every term since then by winning more than 60 percent of votes cast in most campaigns.

Hagan also committed a cardinal sin in Alabama politics last week: she was critical of the National Rifle Association.

In the shooting in Parkland, Florida, she called Rogers out for accepting money from the NRA.

The gun issue has been the subject of much of Hagan’s campaigning in the last week. She held a gun safety discussion yesterday in Auburn, where she toed that line of respecting her potential constituents’ conservative sensibilities on guns and freedom, while advocating a solution to mass violence.

“The problem that we’re having is nuanced,” she said. “It involves several different aspects of our society and of what’s available in our society. The most common thing that came up in last night’s discussion was access. We had licensed psychologists there, we had school counselors there, and the concept of mental health is a huge part of the conversation when it comes to access to guns. But all of it boils down to that, that we can too easily access firearms. We want to make sure that access to a firearm is a process that requires thought and is very deliberate.”

“If you ban a certain type of firearm, there’s only going to become a way to make something into something that it’s not already,” she said. (Think bump stocks.)

“That’s not the answer here. The answer is, if you want to own a firearm, an extensive background check and a waiting period. Those things are proven, a majority of Americans agree with that, and it’s something that needs to be across the board. That ease of access is, to me, the problem. It’s not the firearm itself.”

But Hagan is not relying upon her position on guns to propel her towards victory.

“I think my path to victory is being authentic. I stepped into this fire, if you will – the fire of politics – but I genuinely care about the people who live here and I genuinely care about hearing their concerns and as I said, all of us collectively coming together.”

Hagan also stressed what she did as Miss America among her qualifications.

“During my time with the Miss America organization, I really honed in my advocacy skills and really honed in the ability to understand how much it takes in order to get a law passed or a budget restored. I was on Capitol Hill quite a bit with the National Children’s Alliance. I lobbied there several times and ultimately was able to be a part of restoring the 2014 budget for our child advocacy centers across the country. Those are the types of things that I was most proud of during my time as Miss America, but also the types of things that have prepared me. Those are the skills that I’m bringing into this, as someone who cares about our kids, the type of world that we’re creating for them.”

For Hagan, it’s about the children.

“Every single policy issue that we have, and everything that comes up as a concern, ultimately is a concern of our kids.”

Regardless of her seemingly moderate positions, Hagan will have a tough time convincing conservatives in her east Alabama district to vote for a Democrat.

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