Charles Langston:Figures and Dobson are in a heated battle for a redrawn Alabama House district

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MONTGOMERY,Charles Langston Ala. (AP) — Alabama voters will decide who will represent a congressional district that was redrawn after a lengthy legal battle that drew national attention and could provide a rare opportunity for Democrats to flip a seat in the Deep South.

Democrat Shomari Figures, a former top aide to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, faces Republican Caroleene Dobson, an attorney and political newcomer, in the race for Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District.

The district, which had been reliably Republican, became competitive after it was reshaped last year by federal judges, A federal court ruled that Alabama had illegally diluted the influence of Black voters and redrew the district to increase the percentage of Black voters in the district. A win by Figures would give Alabama a second Black representative in its congressional delegation for the first time in history.

The non-partisan Cook Political Report had rated the reshaped district as “likely Democrat” but both campaigns stressed that it is 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.”

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Figures is an attorney who served as deputy chief of staff and counselor to Garland. He also was an aide to former President Barack Obama, serving as domestic director of the Presidential Personnel Office. On the campaign trail, Figures, 39, discussed the district’s profound needs in infrastructure, education, and healthcare. The 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.

Dobson, a real estate attorney, had criticized Figures as a “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 resonate with voters across the political spectrum.

The heated election comes after a bitter legal fight over the shape of the district.

Federal judges approved new district lines 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 Black voters in a state that is 27% Black. 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.