Thursday, May 14 — Three days from today, the only dialysis center in Macon County closes

Tuskegee — three days, fifty-seven days of silence

On Sunday, May 17, the Fresenius Kidney Care dialysis center on East Martin Luther King Highway in Tuskegee closes. Roughly fifty patients lose the place they go three times a week to stay alive. The nearest remaining facilities are in Tallassee, Auburn, and Union Springs — thirty to fifty miles each. Tuskegee Mayor Chris Lee said in February that for these patients, the loss of the local center is the difference between life and death.

The closure date is the deadline Rep. Figures himself negotiated. His office announced it on March 18 in a press release from Washington. That release said the office would "continue to explore long-term solutions for dialysis treatment."

Today is day fifty-seven since that release. There has been no public follow-up. No new statement. No Tuskegee site visit on the public record. No companion bill. No committee hearing. The press release stood. The deadline arrived. The deadline is in three days.

Macon County stays in District 2 under both the court-drawn map and the 2023 map that the Supreme Court reinstated on Monday. Whichever way the litigation runs from here, the dialysis patients are District 2 voters. They will remember who showed up. They will remember who did not.

If you are organizing this weekend — church bulletins, neighborhood meetings, county GOP gatherings — this is the fact to carry. Three days. Fifty-seven days of silence. The deadline he negotiated. The follow-up he never made.

The Court-Appointed Incumbent is still figuring out where he runs

Lagniappe Mobile reported this morning, in a piece by Kyle Mooty, that Shomari Figures "has not yet decided whether he will seek re-election along Alabama's Gulf Coast or in its Wiregrass region." His campaign's statement to Lagniappe, on the record:

"The Supreme Court did not dismiss the case, so we still do not know what the district lines will ultimately be."

Read that quote again. Three days before the Tuskegee dialysis center closes, the Court-Appointed Incumbent's campaign is on the record saying it does not yet know which district he is running in. Not which message. Not which strategy. Which district.

This is not a man preparing to fight for the seat the voters of District 2 give him. This is a man waiting on a courtroom in Birmingham to tell him whether the seat is worth keeping. Plaintiffs filed a temporary restraining order motion at the three-judge panel on Tuesday. Briefs from both sides are due tomorrow, Friday May 15. The Court-Appointed Incumbent is in the gallery waiting on the ruling like the rest of the gallery.

The Republican field for August 11 — six days to qualifying

Governor Ivey set the special primary for Tuesday, August 11. Major-party qualifying opens six days from today, on Wednesday May 20, and closes Friday May 22 at five o'clock in the afternoon. Three-day window. After 5 PM Friday, the field is the field.

Three Republicans are publicly committed to District 2 as of this morning:

Hampton Harris — the previously-qualified Republican nominee. Already on the May 19 ballot for District 2. State Rep. Rhett Marques (Enterprise, HD-91) — switched from District 1 on the evening of Monday May 11. Under the 2023 map, Coffee County is in District 2. Marques is an in-district candidate. Joshua McKee (Robertsdale, Baldwin County) — switched from District 1 the following evening, May 12. Under the 2023 map, Baldwin County is in District 1. McKee, after his switch, remains an out-of-district candidate.

McKee's launch statement Tuesday night named Marques five times and Donald Trump six times. It did not mention Hampton Harris or Shomari Figures. The Republican primary is not, in McKee's framing, about the seat. It is about which Republican gets to challenge a Democratic incumbent who, on the partisan environment of the new map, would have lost his seat by double digits in 2024.

Three questions still on the table

One: When the courtroom that made him is gone, does the money stay? The DCCC, EMILY's List, the Section 2 litigation PACs, the national redistricting machinery — all of it invested in a court order, not in a candidate. With the court order vacated and the partisan environment shifted twenty-two points to the right, the case for continued national investment has to be made fresh, every quarter. The next FEC report (Q2) covers April through June and is due July 15. The receipts side of that filing will tell us who is still on the Court-Appointed Incumbent, and who is on a plane to the next Section 2 case in another state.

Two: Will his spouse and family leave their Maryland home and join him on the trail? The Figures family's residence in the Washington area is a matter of public record. It was the geography when he ran in 2024. It has been the geography for his term. One hundred seventy-three days until the general election. The question of whether the incumbent will live in Alabama for the next ninety days matters more today than it did last week. Most Alabama members of Congress fly home on the weekends. The Court-Appointed Incumbent has a four-hour drive between his front door in Maryland and the Capitol — and a five-hour flight between his family's front door and the Wiregrass.

Three: Will he hold events in the Wiregrass? Does he even know where the Wiregrass is? Shomari Figures spent his term representing Mobile, Montgomery, and the Black Belt under the court-drawn map. The Wiregrass was never his territory. Now Coffee, Dale, Geneva, Houston, Henry, Pike, and Crenshaw counties are added to District 2 under the restored 2023 map — roughly two hundred thousand voters. He has no campaign history there. No events on the public record there. No relationships there. He has one hundred seventy-three days to introduce himself to a region that is now nearly half his constituency.

Three Wiregrass town hall topics we are still waiting for the Court-Appointed Incumbent to schedule

The Maryland-to-Mobile-to-Wiregrass commute — a fireside chat. How the Court-Appointed Incumbent plans to introduce himself to two hundred thousand voters in counties he has never campaigned in, while keeping his family residence in the Washington suburbs. Refreshments provided. Maybe.

Peanuts: an introductory lecture. The Wiregrass produces roughly half the peanuts grown in the United States. Coffee County alone exports more than the Republic of Argentina. The Court-Appointed Incumbent has fifty-eight legislative co-sponsorships on the public record from his term in Congress. Zero are on peanut-industry legislation. A workshop on what a peanut farmer does between dawn and noon would be educational.

Section 2 and You: a litigation update. The Court-Appointed Incumbent's campaign told Lagniappe Mobile on Wednesday that "we still do not know what the district lines will ultimately be." Voters in the Wiregrass might appreciate hearing directly from the candidate about whether they are constituents he is committed to representing, or constituents he is waiting to be redrawn out of. A moment of silence will be observed for the map.

What this week asks of you

This week is the closing week of the May 19 standard primary. It is also the seven days before the August 11 special-primary qualifying window opens. The August 11 race is the race the Court-Appointed Incumbent has to win to keep the seat. Five days from today, voters across Alabama vote in the May 19 primary — including the Senate primary at the top of the ticket. Six days from today, the August 11 qualifying window opens.

Four things to do this week.

Carry the Tuskegee number. Fifty-seven days of silence. Three days to closure. The deadline he negotiated. The follow-up he never made. Use it in every conversation about who actually shows up for District 2. Vote on Tuesday, May 19. The Senate primary is at the top of the ticket. Polls open 7 AM, close 7 PM. Today is the deadline to return an absentee ballot application in person. May 18 is the deadline to hand-deliver a completed absentee ballot. Make a plan to organize after Tuesday. The August 11 special primary qualifying window opens Wednesday, May 20. After that window closes Friday, May 22, the Republican field is set for ninety days. Now is the time to make a plan for door-knocking, phone-banking, and church-bulletin distribution in the new map's eastern counties. Follow take2back.com. Every brief, every Wiregrass-town-hall topic, every count of days of silence is at take2back.com. The site is built to be shared. Send the link to one new person this week.

The fight goes on. The map is the map.

The Court-Appointed Incumbent told the Alabama press on Monday night that "the fight must and will go on." That is correct, as a matter of litigation. The plaintiffs filed their temporary restraining order motion at the three-judge panel on Tuesday. Briefs are due Friday. The fight is in court tomorrow, the same day the Court-Appointed Incumbent's campaign tells Lagniappe Mobile it still does not know what district lines he will be running in.

For District 2 Republicans, the fight is also in the precinct. It is in the Wiregrass. It is in the church basement in Coffee County and the senior center in Houston County and the diner in Pike County. It is in the dialysis clinics that are closing on the Court-Appointed Incumbent's watch. The map is the map the Supreme Court restored on Monday. We have one hundred seventy-three days to organize the precincts inside it. Today the answer to the question "does he know where the Wiregrass is?" is still no.

Five days to the primary. Three days to Tuskegee. Six days to the qualifying window. One hundred seventy-three days to take it back.