MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) – Alabama voters will decide who will represent a congressional district redrawn after a protracted legal battle that drew national attention and could provide a rare opportunity for Democrats to flip a seat in the Deep South .
Democrat Shomari Figures, a former top aide to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, is running against Republican Caroleene Dobson, a lawyer and political newcomer, in the race for Alabama’s second congressional district.
The district, which had been reliably Republican, became competitive after being reshaped by federal judges last year. A federal court ruled that Alabama had illegally diluted the influence of black voters and redrew the district to increase the percentage of black voters in the district. A Figures victory would give Alabama a second black representative in its congressional delegation for the first time in history.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report had rated the reformed district as “likely Democrat,” but both campaigns emphasized it is a competitive race.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee named Figures in its “Red to Blue” program, a series of priority candidates they believed could wrest districts from Republican control. The National Republican Congressional Committee similarly named Dobson to its list of priority candidates, the “Young Guns.”
Figures is an attorney who served as Garland’s deputy chief of staff and adviser. He was also an aide to former President Barack Obama and served as domestic director of the Presidential Personnel Office. During the campaign, Figures 39 discussed the district’s deep infrastructure, education and healthcare needs. The Mobile native also has deep ties to state politics. His mother is a senator, and his late father was a legislative leader and lawyer who indicted the Ku Klux Klan for the 1981 murder of a black teenager.
Dobson, a real estate attorney, had criticized Figures as a “Washington DC insider” because of his lengthy resume in Washington and his connections to the Obama and Biden administrations. Dobson, 37, highlighted concerns about border security, inflation and crime — issues she said resonate with voters across the political spectrum.
The heated election comes after a bitter legal battle over the shape of the district.
Federal judges approved new district lines after ruling that Alabama’s previous map — which had only one of seven majority-black districts — was likely racially gerrymandered to limit the influence of black voters in a state that is 27% black consists. The three-judge panel said Alabama should have a second district where black voters make up a substantial portion of the voting-age population and have a reasonable chance of electing a candidate of their choice.
The new district, where Black residents make up nearly 49% of the voting-age population, spans the width of the state and includes the capital Montgomery, parts of the port city of Mobile and rural counties.
