Tuesday, May 19 — Alabama Republicans choose the candidate who runs against the Court‑Appointed Incumbent in November

Election Day. Alabama Republicans choose the candidate who runs against the Court‑Appointed Incumbent in November. Hampton Harris is unopposed in the regular‑cycle Republican primary; he becomes the nominee tonight. Tomorrow the qualifying window opens for the August 11 special primary — the second front of this fight. Two days have now passed since the Tuskegee Fresenius closure. The figures.house.gov press page has not added a closure‑day statement. Sixty‑two days of silence on the only public commitment he made about it. Today the District 2 voter votes. Tomorrow the District 2 voter watches who else files. === 1. Election Day Polls open at 7 AM and close at 7 PM. Anyone standing in line at 7 PM votes. Today is the day Alabama votes. On the regular‑cycle Republican ballot, Hampton Harris is the only AL‑02 Republican nominee. He becomes the Republican nominee for the regular AL‑02 cycle the moment polls close. He is the first‑mover in this district — the only Republican candidate who held District 2 as a primary objective before Monday May 11, when the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the injunction that had governed which map applied. The Court‑Appointed Incumbent's posture today: he has told Lagniappe Mobile he has not decided whether he is running in District 1 or District 2 under the 2023 map that will govern the August 11 special. While Republican voters across this state are casting ballots, the man who has held this seat for eighteen months has not decided which seat he wants to hold next. === 2. Day 62 — the deadline has now been past two days Sunday May 17 the Fresenius Kidney Care center on East Martin Luther King Highway closed for good. Roughly fifty Macon County residents now drive fifteen miles each way, three times a week, to Tallassee, Auburn or Union Springs to keep the blood in their bodies clean. The figures.house.gov press releases page this morning still carries items from prior months at the top. There is no closure‑day statement. No site visit on the public record before the closure, on the day of the closure, or in the two days since. No introduced federal legislation on the Tuskegee or Wilcox closures. No appropriations request. No town hall in Tuskegee. The March 18 press release out of Washington remains his most recent public statement on the closure. Sixty‑two days ago. The patients are on the road right now. The deadline arrived. Forty‑eight hours have passed. The follow‑up still has not. === 3. Two Columns — speech and job, updated What he says about District 2 | What he is doing for District 2 | March 18 press release: “The people in Tuskegee who need dialysis cannot afford to miss a treatment or travel long distances multiple times a week.” | Day 62. No site visit on the public record. None on Sunday when the facility closed. None Monday. None scheduled this morning. | March 18 press release: “We will continue to explore long‑term solutions for dialysis treatment.” | No long‑term solution publicly named in 62 days. No successor operator identified. The patients have already left the facility. | May 7 Montgomery town hall on redistricting: “Your voice is on the line.” | Held the town hall in Montgomery on a topic that affects his political future. Did not hold a town hall in Tuskegee on a topic that affects his constituents' lives. | May 11 statement after SCOTUS: “I ran for this seat to be a voice for all of Alabama.” | Told Lagniappe Mobile two days later he has not decided whether to run in District 2 or District 1. | May 11 statement: “The fight must and will go on.” | The fight he is publicly engaged in is the litigation over the map. The fight he is not publicly engaged in is the one for the dialysis patients on the road this morning. | Today: a campaign question about which district he wants to represent. | Today: a survival question for Macon County patients about how to get to a treatment center. | One column is a campaign. The other column is the job. District 2 is owed the second column, not the first. === 4. What this week looks like Today, Tuesday May 19. Polls 7 AM – 7 PM. Hampton Harris becomes the Republican nominee for AL‑02 on the regular cycle. Tomorrow, Wednesday May 20. Major‑party qualifying opens for the August 11 special primary — the second AL‑02 contest that runs under the 2023 map. The field of Republicans who will face the Court‑Appointed Incumbent — if he runs in District 2 — begins to be set. Friday, May 22, 5:00 PM CT. Qualifying closes. The final August 11 Republican field is in. Republicans who have publicly committed so far: Hampton Harris, the first‑mover and the candidate who built infrastructure for District 2 before the map changed. State Rep. Rhett Marques (HD‑91, Enterprise), who switched from AL‑01 on May 11. Coffee County is inside AL‑02 under the 2023 map. Joshua McKee (Robertsdale, Baldwin County), who switched from AL‑01 on May 12. Baldwin County is in AL‑01 under the 2023 map. === 5. The litigation is a campaign. The seat is the job. The three‑judge federal panel in the Northern District of Alabama has both sides' briefs on the Singleton and ACLU temporary restraining order motion as of Friday May 15. No ruling yet. Further proceedings expected this week per Alabama Reflector. State‑court Amendment 4 challenges — under the 2022 ratified rule barring election‑law changes within six months of an election — have been signaled by Senate Minority Leader Bobby Singleton and Rep. Napoleon Bracy. Not yet filed. None of those tracks puts the Tuskegee Fresenius back on its lights. The litigation is a campaign about which map governs August 11. It does not produce a successor dialysis operator. The patients who left a facility on Sunday are not coming back to one because a federal panel reads a brief. === 6. The kitchen‑table cost Brent crude closed Friday near $108 per barrel, up roughly eight percent on the week — the largest weekly move since the Strait of Hormuz closure began. WTI closed near $106 after an eleven percent weekly gain. The International Energy Agency warned this week the global oil market will stay materially undersupplied through October even if the Iran conflict resolves next month. The District 2 family that filled up over the weekend is paying for an eight percent one‑week move. The family that opens its power bill in the next thirty days is paying an industry input cost that has climbed week after week. The dialysis patient on the road to Tallassee three times a week is paying twice — in gas and in hours. Every fuel‑cost increase is a tax on the rural Alabama family the federal seat is supposed to represent. === 7. What the District 2 voter does today Vote. Polls 7 AM – 7 PM. The Republican slate is the start of the campaign that replaces him. Read the news Wednesday morning. The August 11 qualifying window opens. The field is being built in real time. Tell your neighbors who Hampton Harris is. He is the first‑mover in this district. He is the one who put the work in before the Supreme Court made the work necessary. Carry the Tuskegee fact. Sixty‑two days. The deadline arrived Sunday. The follow‑up still has not. The patients are on the road right now. === 8. Closing The Court‑Appointed Incumbent today has one job: decide which district he wants to run in. The District 2 voter today has one job: vote for the candidate who already decided that District 2 is the work, not the choice. Sixty‑two days of silence is the case. Today is the vote.