Johnathan Walker:Alabama congressional district redrawn to better represent Black voters sparks competitive race

TUSKEGEE,Johnathan Walker 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 recently greeted families gathered at a county festival.

Democrat Shomari Figures, who worked in the Obama White House and as a former top aide to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, is trying to flip the seat, which was redrawn after a lengthy redistricting battle. Republican Caroleene Dobson, a real estate attorney and political newcomer, is attempting to keep the seat in GOP hands.

Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District was redrawn after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed Alabama had likely illegally diluted the influence of Black voters when drawing congressional lines. A three-judge panel reshaped the district, which now includes places like Tuskegee, to give Black voters an opportunity to elect a candidate of their choosing.

The open seat has sparked a heated race for the district — which now leans Democratic, but that Republicans maintain is winnable — that could help decide control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Black residents now make up nearly 49% of the district’s voting-age population, up from about 30% when the district was reliably Republican. The non-partisan Cook Political Report ranks the district as “likely Democrat.”

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Still, both Dobson and Figures believe the race is competitive.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee named Figures to its “Red to Blue” program, a slate of priority candidates they believe can flip districts from Republican control. The National Republican Congressional Committee similarly named Dobson to its list of priority candidates called the “Young Guns.”

Both candidates are lawyers under the age of 40 with young children. And both left Alabama for opportunities but have recently returned home.

But they diverge on politics.

Figures, 39, is a native of Mobile and the son of two state legislators. His 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 for the Obama administration as domestic director of presidential personnel and then as liaison to the Department of Justice. He also served as deputy chief of staff and counselor to Garland.

During campaign stops, Figures has discussed the impact of Alabama’s refusal to expand Medicaid, the need to halt hospital closures in the state, support for public education and the need to bring additional resources to a district with profound infrastructure needs.

“We’ve lost three hospitals in this district since I got in this race. We have several others that are hemorrhaging, including one here in Montgomery,” Figures said in a speech.

Dobson, 37, grew up in rural Monroe County and graduated from Harvard University and Baylor Law School. A real estate attorney, she lived and practiced in Texas before moving back to Alabama.

Dobson has emphasized concerns about border security, inflation and crime — issues that she said are worries for families across the political spectrum. In a heated GOP primary runoff, she ran ads describing herself as someone “who stands tall with Donald Trump.”

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“The vast majority of Alabamians in this district are very concerned about where our country is headed,” Dobson said after a Montgomery campaign stop. “They have to look at the past three-and-a-half years and who has been in charge when it comes to our open border, when it comes to our economy, inflation, the price of groceries.”

Dobson last week made a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border to highlight border security. “There are impacts on crime, drugs but it’s also the open border policies are just fostering a humanitarian crisis,” Dobson said.

Figures called the trip a “photo op.” He said while immigration is an important issue that needs bipartisan cooperation, it is not the cause of pressing problems in the district.

“Illegal immigration is not the reason that 12 out of 13 counties in this district lost population last year. Illegal immigration is not the reason our kids here in the state of Alabama read at the sixth-worst level of any state,” Figures said.

The new 2nd Congressional District stretches across lower Alabama from the Mississippi border to the Georgia border. It includes part of Mobile and the capital Montgomery, and many rural counties — including parts of the state’s Black Belt, a region named for its dark fertile soil that once gave rise to cotton plantations worked by enslaved people. It also includes many white suburban and rural areas that have been GOP strongholds.

The switch to Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket should benefit Figures, said Democratic pollster Zac McCrary. “Black voters are now more enthusiastic. Young voters are now more enthusiastic,” McCrary said.

On the Republican side, enthusiasm to return Trump to the White House is expected to drive turnout among GOP voters.

Ira Stallworth, a 59-year-old retired educator who met both candidates in Tuskegee, said the race has already produced something new: attention. She said the area has often been overlooked by candidates in the past when it was part of a GOP stronghold.

“We have a chance to have a district that gives us a little more voice,” Stallworth said.