They Redrew the Map. They Couldn't Redraw Us.

Alabama carved a winning Black-held district down to kill it. Eight months later, the race is tied.

Alabama's 2nd District was supposed to be over by now. Somebody forgot to tell the voters. In 2024, south Alabama did something this state had never done: it sent two Black members of Congress to Washington at the same time. Shomari Figures won with nearly 55 percent, not a squeaker, not an asterisk. A mandate. It took the Supreme Court to undo it.

In April, Louisiana v. Callais gutted the part of the Voting Rights Act that made the district possible in the first place. Weeks later, the Court cleared Alabama to dust off the very map federal judges had already ruled discriminatory, the one struck down for diluting Black voting power. The Legislature didn't hesitate. They moved primary dates. They redrew lines mid-cycle. They took a district that was roughly 47 percent Black and cut it to 40. On paper, that's the whole story. Trump carried these new lines by 14. Cook rates the seat seven points more Republican than the country. In any other year, the obituary writes itself.

“You give me your 40 percent Black district, I like my chances.”

— Shomari Figures

The Rig

They spent two years and untold legal fees engineering a Republican seat. They built it to be uncompetitive. And it is currently a coin flip. The most recent poll out of the district has Figures and his Trump-endorsed opponent deadlocked at 46, with 8 percent still making up their minds.

The Math Didn't Hold

Cook Political Report already moved this seat off Safe Republican. Split Ticket calls it a pure toss-up. National forecasters who spent the spring writing this district off are quietly revising. They assumed the district was the district, that if you subtract enough Black voters, the seat converts automatically. But people are not line segments.

Every Dollar Proves the Point

Every dollar this campaign raises between now and November is a dollar spent proving a point bigger than one seat: you cannot draw your way out of accountability. They rigged the map and still can't close the deal.

“Voters in Dothan and Montgomery and the Black Belt are not a demographic input you shuffle between spreadsheets. They noticed what was done to them. They are unusually motivated to answer it.”

— Kolbey Gardner

Let's Make Them Regret Opening It

This race is tied because voters answered a rigged map with turnout. Your membership funds the canvassers, the digital program, and the field team closing this out through November.