TUSKEGEE, Ala. (AP) — On opposite sides of the courthouse square in Tuskegee, Alabama — a place steeped in African American history, including the city’s namesake university and World War II airmen — two opposing congressional candidates greeted families gathered in the county recently. festival.
Democrat Shomari Figures, who worked in the Obama White House and is a former aide to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, is trying to flip the seat, which was redrawn after a long redistricting battle. Republican Caroleene Dobson, a real estate attorney and political newcomer, is trying to keep the seat in GOP hands.
Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District was redrawn after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Alabama had arguably diluted the influence of black voters when drawing congressional boundaries. A three-judge panel redrew the district, which now includes places like Tuskegee, to give black voters a chance to choose a candidate of their choice.
The open seat has sparked a hotly contested district — now leaning Democratic but considered winnable by Republicans — that could help decide control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Black residents now make up nearly 49 percent of the district’s voting-age population, up from about 30 percent when the district was reliably Republican. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report ranks the district as “likely Democratic.”
However, both Dobson and Figures believe the competition will be competitive.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee named the figures for a “red to blue” program, a list of priority candidates they believe can flip districts from Republican control. The National Republican Congressional Committee similarly named Dobson to its “Young Guns” list of priority candidates.
Both candidates are lawyers under the age of 40 with small children. And both left Alabama for opportunities but have recently returned home.
But they are different from politics.
Figures, 39, is a native of Mobile and the son of two state legislators. Her late father was a legislative leader and attorney who sued the Ku Klux Klan over the 1981 murder of a black teenager. After graduating from the University of Alabama and its law school, Figures worked in the Obama administration as domestic director of the presidential staff and then as a liaison to the Department of Justice. He also served as Garland’s chief of staff and advisor.
During campaign stops, Figures has discussed the impact of Alabama’s refusal to expand Medicaid, the need to stop the state’s hospital closings, support for public education and the need to bring additional resources to a region with deep infrastructure needs.
“We’ve lost three hospitals in this area since I entered this race. We have several more that are bleeding, including one here in Montgomery,” Figures said in his speech.
Dobson, 37, grew up in rural Monroe and graduated from Harvard University and Baylor Law School. A real estate attorney, he lived and practiced in Texas before moving back to Alabama.
Dobson has highlighted concerns about border security, inflation and crime — issues he says are concerns for families across the political spectrum. In the heated GOP primary, he ran ads describing himself as “standing with Donald Trump.”
“The vast majority of Alabamians in this district are very concerned about where our country is headed,” Dobson said after a campaign stop in Montgomery. “They have to look at the past three and a half years and who has been responsible for our open border when it comes to our economy, inflation, grocery prices.”
Dobson made a trip to the US-Mexico border last week to highlight border security. “There are impacts on crime, drugs, but also the open border policy is only contributing to the humanitarian crisis,” Dobson said.
The chapters called the trip a “photograph”. He said that while immigration is an important issue that requires mutual cooperation, it is not an urgent problem in the region.
“Illegal immigration is not the reason that 12 of the 13 counties in this district lost population last year. Illegal immigration is not the reason our kids here in Alabama are reading at the sixth-worst rate in the state, the figures said.
The new 2nd congressional district stretches down Alabama from the Mississippi border to the Georgia border. It includes parts of Mobile and the capital, Montgomery, as well as many rural areas — including parts of the state’s Black Belt, named for its dark, fertile soil that once gave birth to cotton plantations worked by enslaved people. It also includes many white suburban and rural areas that have been GOP strongholds.
The switch of Democratic front-runner Vice President Kamala Harris should benefit the cast, said Democratic pollster Zac McCrary. “Black voters are more enthusiastic now. Young voters are more eager now,” McCrary said.
On the Republican side, enthusiasm for returning Trump to the White House is expected to boost turnout among GOP voters.
Ira Stallworth, a 59-year-old retired educator who met both candidates at Tuskegee, said the race has already produced something new: attention. He said the district has often been overlooked by candidates in the past when it was part of a GOP stronghold.
“We have an opportunity to have a district that gives us a little more voice,” Stallworth said.
