Washington Drew the District That Elected Figures — That Map Is Gone

Wall of Shame — Today: Maynard Nexsen

Today on the Wall of Shame: the Maynard Nexsen PAC (Birmingham) has put $5,000 into Rep. Shomari Figures' campaign account. The same firm was also writing checks to the Republican primary opponent — bipartisan hedging from the firm representing Regions Bank in the Mabel Amos case. The Wall of Shame exists for one reason — so that total stops growing. https://take2back.com/wall-of-shame.html

The District That Elected Figures Was Drawn in a Courtroom — and It's Gone

Shomari Figures first won this seat in 2024, but not on lines Alabama's voters drew. After years of national voting-rights litigation, a federal court threw out the legislature's map and a court-appointed special master redrew District 2 into a seat engineered to elect a Democrat — nearly half Black by voting-age population. That map no longer exists. This year the U.S. Supreme Court cleared Alabama to return to its 2023 legislative map, and the District 2 on the ballot August 11 — Wiregrass-anchored and running up through Montgomery — is the real one. The seat Figures holds was built on boundaries that have since been thrown out, and that reversal is the only reason there is a special primary at all.

The Race Is Set — and Wide Open

The field for the August 11 special primary is locked, and the first public poll is out. Its clearest signal isn't who's ahead — it's how little is decided. Most District 2 voters aren't tuned in yet, no candidate has consolidated the district, and this is a winner-take-all primary with no runoff: whoever gets the most votes on August 11 carries the Republican standard into November against Figures.

Why "Wide Open" Is the Whole Point

A race most voters aren't watching yet is a race whose direction gets decided by the people who show up — and by whoever spends to reach the ones who don't. Seven weeks out, the terms of this contest are still being set. They can be set here, by the people who live in District 2, or they can be set by money flowing in from outside. The difference is whether District 2 Republicans engage now or wait until the ads are already running.

Washington Is Spending to Keep This Seat

The outside money is real, and it is named. Last week the Cook Political Report — the most-cited nonpartisan handicapper in the country — moved District 2 from "Solid Republican" to "Likely Republican," the only Democrat-held seat among seven it shifted that week, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has now placed Figures on its Frontline list and committed to defending him. Trump carried these lines by 14 points in 2024. The same national forces that fought to draw the old district are now spending to hold the seat it created. National Democrats do not spend to defend a seat they think is safe; they spend because they think it is winnable. That tells every District 2 Republican exactly how seriously to take this one.

Now on X

TakeBack District 2 posts daily at @take2back — the money, the record, and what's at stake as August 11 approaches. Follow along, and send it to neighbors in District 2 who should be watching this race.

Bottom Line

The district that first sent Figures to Washington is gone, the new lines are the real District 2, and Washington is already spending to hold the seat anyway — while most voters still aren't paying attention. That gap is the opening. The next hard signal is the July 15 FEC filing; the decision is August 11. The time to engage is now, before the outside money sets the terms for you.