The seat Washington is spending big to keep blue

Wall of Shame — Today: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama

Today on the Wall of Shame: the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama PAC (Montgomery) has put $5,000 into Rep. Shomari Figures' campaign account. Alabama’s dominant health insurer, writing checks to the congressman who represents the patients and hospitals it covers. The Wall of Shame exists for one reason — so that total stops growing. https://take2back.com/wall-of-shame.html

THE FILING POSTED. HERE IS THE READ WE PROMISED.

We told you twice, in print, that when Congressman Figures's second-quarter report posted we would show you exactly what it said. It posted. Here it is, straight — including the one part that cuts against the frame we have been carrying, because the point was never to win an argument. It was to hand you the truth and let you do the math.

THE NUMBER HE WANTS YOU TO SEE

In the April-to-June quarter, Shomari Figures raised about $468,000, and he more than doubled his campaign's cash on hand — from roughly $325,000 to roughly $656,000. His press shop will want you impressed by that. Fair enough; it is a big quarter. That number is the advertisement. Now read the rest of the page.

WHO WROTE THE CHECKS — AND THE PART WE WILL NOT BURY

Of the contributions Figures took in this quarter, about $246,000 came from Washington political action committees and about $201,000 came from individuals. That is roughly one dollar and twenty-two cents in PAC money for every dollar from a person.

Here is the part we promised to report whichever way it broke: that quarterly ratio is actually better than the two-dollars-and-forty-three-cents-to-one we showed you from his cycle total. His individual money went up this quarter. We said we would show you the split honestly, and an honest read says his grassroots number improved. It did.

WHY THE STRUCTURE STILL TELLS THE STORY

Now step back from one quarter to the whole campaign year, and the picture holds. Across 2026, political action committees have given Shomari Figures about $829,000. Individuals have given about $458,000. That is still nearly two dollars of PAC money for every single dollar from a human being.

And look at what actually drove the quarter. His cash on hand doubled because the national money arrived — the very Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee "Frontline" money we told you was coming to rescue this seat, from the program the party runs for its most endangered incumbents. A giant quarter for a nationally protected incumbent is not a sign that the people back home are rushing to fund him. It is the national party writing the checks to hold a seat the people who live here are ready to take back. Worth one more note: nearly half of his individual money this quarter — about $92,000 of the $201,000 — came in below the itemizing line, the small, unitemized giving that national online fundraising is built to harvest.

THE BOTTOM LINE

We showed you the headline, and we showed you the split, and we showed you the part that did not flatter our own case. The total is what he wants you to see. The composition, and the national machine behind the surge, are what he is: a Washington-funded incumbent whose war chest just doubled on national-party money — with his best grassroots quarter still leaving him nearly two-to-one PAC-funded for the year.

Six Republicans are on the August 11 ballot. Which one carries this district is for the voters of the Second District to decide — not a committee in Washington, and not this newsletter. Our fight is with the incumbent and the money behind him.

August 11. Then November 3.