MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Shomari Figures, a former top aide to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, on Tuesday won election to Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District, which was redrawn after a lengthy legal battle.
Figures defeated Republican Caroleene Dobson to win the open seat, flipping the district that had been a GOP stronghold until it was redrawn last year. A federal court ruled that Alabama had illegally diluted the influence of Black voters — who make up 27% of the state’s population — and reshaped the district to give Black voters a fair opportunity to elect a congressional candidate of their choosing.
Figures, an attorney, served as deputy chief of staff and counselor to Garland and also served as an aide to former President Barrack Obama, serving as domestic director of the Presidential Personnel Office.
Figures on the campaign trail discussed the district’s profound needs in infrastructure, education and healthcare. He said Alabama’s refusal to expand its Medicaid program under the Affordable Care Act helped contribute to a wave of rural hospital closures in the state.
On the campaign trail, he often invoked the storied civil rights history of the district, which includes Montgomery, Tuskegee and parts of the state’s rural Black Belt. The 39-year-old Mobile native also has deep ties to state politics. His mother is a state senator, and his late father was a legislative leader and attorney who sued the Ku Klux Klan over the 1981 murder of a Black teenager.
The redrawn district was one of several that Democrats had targeted for a flip. The non-partisan Cook Political Report had rated the reshaped district as “likely Democrat” but both campaigns stressed that it was a competitive race.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee named Figures to its “Red to Blue” program, a slate of priority candidates they believed could flip districts from Republican control. The National Republican Congressional Committee similarly named Dobson to its list of priority candidates called the “Young Guns.”
Dobson, a real estate attorney and political newcomer, had criticized Figures as “Washington D.C. insider” because of his lengthy Washington resume and connections to the Obama and Biden administrations. Dobson, 37, emphasized concerns about border security, inflation, and crime — issues that she said are worries for families across the political spectrum.
The new district came after a lengthy court battle in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Black Alabamians who had challenged the state’s existing congressional districts.
Federal judges approved new district lines in October after ruling that Alabama’s previous map — which had only one majority-Black district out of seven — was likely racially gerrymandered to limit the influence of the state’s Black voters. 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 opportunity to elect 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 city of Montgomery, parts of the port city of Mobile as well as rural counties.
Kim Chandler, The Associated Press
