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And now, from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN Audio, the Axe Files, with your host David Axelrod.

One of the breakout stars of this momentous campaign season was my CNN colleague Abby Philip, whose thoughtful, probing, reporting on the election

really stood out and marked her as one of America's fine young political journalists.

I sat down with Abby this week to talk about her own life and journey to this point, her meteoric rise in journalism, and her thoughts on the campaign we just covered and what it means for the country.

Here is that conversation.

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Abby Philip, so good to see you.

You know because we've communicated during this year how much I've appreciated your coverage. And so have a lot of other people.

You've been a bit of a phenom in this election season. How does it feel to be a phenom?

That's a funny question. I mean, it feels a little bit the same. It just feels like a lot of people are paying attention, which is great.

But I think day to day, it's like what I've been doing for several years now. And I don't think anything I've done has changed, but I think people's awareness of it has, and it feels it feels great.

I'm kind of honored and a little flabbergasted by it. I know my mother is having really the time of her life and all of this is really great for her.

It's a weird deal though, you know, because you are a very good reporter and you have the disposition of a reporter.

And reporters are trained to sort of stand in the back of the room and report on what they see, which is what you do.

So well, and then all of a sudden, you're sort of you're on the you're in the New York Times, you're, you know, people are noticing it.

There have to be moments when you sort of shake your head and say, how the hell did this happen?

Yeah, I mean, there have been a lot of moments like that over the last couple of weeks.

And, you know, I go between wanting to kind of sink into the background. I've told a lot of people recently, and people who actually know me well know this.

I'm very much an introvert. I don't like a lot of attention. I don't like kind of being at the front and center of things.

I mean, even the fact that my career on TV almost every day, it's very compartmentalized for me. I mean, this is my job.

I'm supposed to just communicate to people verbally. And part of that just happens to have a visual element, but it's not something that's front of mind for me personally.

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