Shomari Figures and Anthony Daniels Head to Democratic Primary Runoff in Alabama’s Second District

Shomari Figures, a former Justice Department official, and State Representative Anthony Daniels will head to a runoff election in the Democratic primary for Alabama’s Second Congressional District, according to The Associated Press.

Voters were weighing in for the first time in the newly shaped Second District, which had been redrawn after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that Alabama had illegally undercut the power of Black voters.

Former State Senator Dick Brewbaker and Caroleene Dobson, a real estate lawyer, secured enough votes to make it to the runoff for the Republican primary. The runoff elections will be April 16.

The new district cuts hundreds of miles across the state, running through the state capital of Montgomery, much of the seaport city of Mobile and parts of the Black Belt, rural counties where rich soil fueled cotton plantations worked by slaves.

Because Black voters historically support Democratic candidates in the state, the Second Congressional District is now viewed as an opportunity for Democrats to flip the seat. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report, after the map was redrawn, changed its ranking of the district to be a likely Democratic seat.

The newly shaped district could also lead to the state sending two Black representatives to Washington for the first time in its history. Mr. Figures and Mr. Daniels are both Black, and Representative Terri Sewell, a Black Democrat in the Seventh Congressional District, is expected to win re-election.