By John Sharp
Shomari Figures inched closer to a history-making candidacy on Tuesday, with a convincing win in the 2nd congressional district Democratic runoff election.
The victory puts Figures, an attorney who recently worked with in the Justice Department under U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, as the early favorite to be the first Black Alabamian elected to Congress outside the 7th congressional district.
But Republicans are not backing down, embracing the candidacy of conservative attorney Caroleene Dobson following a bitter primary runoff contest that illustrated the high stakes for a congressional district that could play a crucial role in determining which political party is in the majority in 2025.
Figures and Dobson, both political newcomers who overcame primary contests from a host of current and former state lawmakers, will square off in the Nov. 5 general election.
Figures, though running his first campaign, has a familiar name in Alabama politics. His mother, Vivian, is a longtime state senator representing the Mobile area. His late father, Michael, was a state senator from 1978 until his death in 1996.
“Alabama voters now stand on the cusp of making history in November, when Black Alabamians could – for the first time – elect two members of Congress who truly reflect their political desires,” said Eric Holder, the U.S. Attorney General during much of the Obama Administration and chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.
Said John Wahl, the chairman of the Alabama GOP, “Congressional District 2 is one of the most important districts in the country and we are confident that she will do an amazing job representing the people of Alabama and the values they believe in.”
‘Likely Democratic’
Most political pundits give Figures the early advantage to be only the fourth Black member of Congress elected from Alabama, given that the congressional district was a +12 advantage for President Joe Biden during the 2020 election.
“It’s clearly a district that Democrats should win in an era where very few districts vote for one party for president and another for House,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor with Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
Sabato’s and Cook Political Report both rate the district as “likely Democratic.”
Since 1992, the state has only had one majority Black congressional district since Reconstruction with only three Black members every being elected from the state, all from the 7th congressional district that includes Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, and Selma: Earl Hilliard, Artur Davis and Terri Sewell.
The analysts also note there are a host of congressional seats in which voters backed Biden in 2020 that were won by Republicans in 2022. Most of those are in New York and California, and not in the Deep South where voter allegiances are consistent with their political party preference, and where swing districts are rare.
Several factors that bode well for the Democrats, they say:
- Alabama’s historic of racial polarized voting in a district with a 47.6% Black-45% white voting-age population split. Much of the district includes rural Black Belt counties with a strong history of supporting Democratic candidates, including the City of Montgomery.
- Alabama is one of only seven states with straight-party voting. In those states, Alabama included, straight-ticket voting is popular, and voters have shown – especially in an age of hyper partisanship – a tendency to not stray from their party preference. Even in states without straight-ticket voting, data from 2020 shows very little movement among voters away from the party they support on the presidential ticket. A Pew Research Center report ahead of the 2020 election, showed fewer than 5% of voters split-ticket voting – i.e., a voter casting a vote for Trump or Biden, and a Senate candidate from the opposite party.
- Alabama is considered one of the most inelastic states in the U.S., which means voter behavior is overall predictable and not subject to sudden shifts in national moods. In other words, traditional Democratic voting blocs are sticking with the Democrats, while the Republicans will stay in their lanes.
“Candidate quality matters around the margins but it’s very difficult for even a strong candidate to successfully swim upstream in a district that otherwise breaks decisively against his or her party,” said Zac McCrary, a Democratic pollster and partner at Montgomery-based Impact Research.
“Alabama’s racially polarized voting does make it even harder for a candidate to defy partisan gravity, in either direction,” he said. “Alabama has less ticket splitting than many other states.”
GOP’s ‘good candidate’
For Republicans, the battle will boil down to turnout, and having Dobson — a 37-year-old attorney from Montgomery who celebrated her victory Tuesday in Mobile — appeal to female voters in a purple district.
Mobile will also play an outsized role in the race, as it did during the runoff contests by helping Dobson secure a victory over former state Sen. Dick Brewbaker.
If the Republicans were going to win, they needed to nominate a woman, said GOP political strategist Jonathan Gray of Mobile. “With IVF and abortion (rulings) recently, their best shot was (nominating) a female Republican in a purple district,” he said.
Gray added, “The Republican Party has a good candidate and a fight in front of them. They have one who can go out and win a purple district.”
Gray gave credit to Dobson’s campaign team, headed up by campaign manager Paul Shashy, for overcoming a 13.1-point deficit in the March 5 primary to secure a 17-point runoff win despite Brewbaker’s name recognition and advantage for being a longtime business owner in Montgomery.
“The difference in this race was really run by the campaigns,” he said. “With 6 to 8 percent voter turnout, the campaign focus needed to be on the grassroots, local endorsements, phone calls and direct mail. That’s what Dobson’s campaign did. On the other hand, Brewbaker ran his campaign focused on television expenditures and paid advertising, which works really well in a large turnout, regularly scheduled election. But that simply did not play well in the runoff.”
The unofficial returns show turnout on Tuesday at 7 percent.
Figures overwhelmingly won in his hometown county of Mobile, and even defeated his Democratic opponent, state Rep. Anthony Daniels in Montgomery. Dobson also overwhelmingly won Mobile over Brewbaker, setting up a contest that Gray said bodes well for the Port City after incumbent Mobile resident and U.S. Rep. Jerry Carl was defeated by U.S. Rep. Barry Moore of Enterprise in the 1st congressional Republican primary last month.
“Mobile is really in a good position for the general election, there’s no question,” said Gray, saying that Dobson has “momentum” among Republicans. “Shomari Figures is going to be a tough opponent, but there’s not guarantee he will win the district and, in fact, at this point I would probably say this race is an even toss up.”
Election factors
The Alabama Democratic Party’s recent history of electoral struggles, and internal strife, could also be a factor. But despite disputes among Democratic coalitions ahead of March 5, key groups like the Alabama Democratic Conference coalesced and backed Figures’ candidacy before the runoff.
David Hughes, a political science professor at Auburn University in Montgomery, said he thinks the general election will boil down to turnout, which should favor the Democratic Party given that more Democratic voters live within the district.
Following the March 5 primary, the GOP celebrated that Democrats cast only 161 more voters than Republicans and gave the GOP hopes about turning the district into a “toss up” status. The runoff showed the Democratic candidates receiving 10,744 more votes than the Republicans.
“More Democrats, as a percentage of total votes cast, should turn out in the general (election) than they did on March 5 for the primary,” Hughes said. “Consequently, I think folks are right to call this a ‘likely’ or ‘leans Democratic’ district. After all, it was drawn to offer Democrats a layup in their efforts to elect a second Black member of the state’s U.S. House delegation. But I’d never underestimate the Alabama Democrat Party’s capacity to miss a layup.”
Legislative factors could also be a factor, including whether state officials attempt to keep Biden’s name off the ballot in November over the timing of the certification of his nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
“The scenario in which this race gets too close for comfort for Democrats would be if Republicans are dramatically ore energized to turnout than are Democrats,” said McCrary. “Usually, in a presidential election year, turnout is a high-water mark and both parties have similar levels of engagement. But if there is indeed a scenario where Biden is not on the ballot in Alabama, then we’d be in unchartered territory.”
The Biden campaign anticipates it will be on the ballot in Alabama, despite issues over Alabama’s state law raised recently by Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen.
But those issues aside, McCrary said it will take a “flawed” Democratic nominee and an “unusually strong” Republican nominee to lead to a November upset.
“It is difficult to envision (Dobson) winning over the significant share of Democrats and Biden voters that would be necessary for a Republican to win a congressional district at the same time Biden is carrying the set at the top of the ticket,” he said.
