Alabama House Minority Leader Anthony Daniels (D) and Shomari Figures (D), a former Justice Department official, are vying for a newly drawn House district in southern Alabama.
Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District stretches across the state’s eastern and western borders. It includes Montgomery, Macon and parts of Mobile, among other counties.
Both men competed in the March 5 primary but were forced into a runoff when neither was able to get at least 50 percent of the vote in the Democratic contest.
The backstory: Alabama’s House map this cycle includes a second nearly Black majority House district after the Supreme Court issued a surprising ruling last year saying Alabama likely violated the Voting Rights Act, upholding a lower court ruling.
The state was required to change its map from one that included only one majority Black district to a map that included two Black majority House districts.
The state sought to submit their own map afterward that declined to create a second majority Black district, forcing a court-appointed special master to create several selections for a judge panel to choose from.
Not so fast: Alabama Republicans have already suggested the state’s redistricting fight is not over.
“The Office of the Secretary of State will facilitate the 2024 election cycle in accordance with the map the federal court has forced upon Alabama and ordered us to use,” Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen (R) said in October.
“It is important for all Alabamians to know that the legal portion of this process has not yet been completed,” he added. “A full hearing on the redistricting issue will take place in the future and I trust Attorney General Marshall to represent Alabama through that process. In the meantime, I will keep our state’s elections safe, secure and transparent because that is what I was elected to do.”
What it means in the meantime: Whichever Democrat wins will either go against whoever wins the GOP primary runoff — Dick Brewbaker or Caroleene Dobson.
Still, Democrats are projected to win a second House seat in Alabama with the new district, impacting who wins the majority in the lower chamber this fall, as Republicans defend their narrow edge.
