Alabama Republicans Redrew His District. This Black Congressman Is Fighting Back.

Democratic U.S. Representative Shomari Figures is fighting to keep his seat in Congress after Alabama Republicans redrew his district to make it harder for him to win. Figures is one of the only two Democrats from Alabama in the U.S. House, and he is one of the state's first two Black members of Congress in its history. The battle over his seat has become a big deal nationally, with nearly $10 million spent on TV ads in just seven weeks. The fight is about more than one seat — it touches on voting rights, race, and who gets a say in American democracy.

The trouble started after the U.S. Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act, a law that protects people's right to vote regardless of their race. Once that happened, Alabama's Republican-led state legislature quickly redrew the boundaries of Figures' congressional district. The new map lowered the share of Black voters in his district from 48% to 40%, making it more likely that a Republican could win. Figures had been expecting this move and was ready to push back.

Figures is not giving up easily. He has been traveling all across his district, talking to Black voters in cities like Montgomery and Tuskegee — places that played a huge role in the civil rights movement. He has also been visiting more conservative, Republican-leaning areas to talk to voters about the high cost of everyday things like food, gas, and farm supplies. "We know that the deck has been stacked. We know that the rules have been changed in the middle of the game, but we know what we've got to do," he told a cheering crowd in Montgomery.

Figures' opponent is Rhett Marques, a state lawmaker who has been endorsed by President Donald Trump. Marques has strong ties to heavily Republican parts of the district, where he once served on a city council and ran an auto shop for many years. He says the new district lines simply bring the seat back to what it was before a federal court changed it. "We have an opportunity to not only flip a seat from Democrat back to Republican here in Alabama, but to also hold the majority in the House," Marques said.

Many Black voters in Alabama say the redrawing of the district feels like a step backward in history. Some compare it to the Jim Crow era, a time when Southern states used unfair laws to stop Black Americans from voting. Francis Fanning, a 75-year-old retired teacher in Montgomery, said, "History is repeating itself." Sheyann Webb-Christburg, who was only 8 years old when she marched for voting rights in Selma in 1965, said she is sad but still hopeful. "We still got to continue just as we did back in the '60s. Lift our voices, because we always keep hope alive," she said.

National leaders have also spoken out about this race. U.S. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey visited Alabama to campaign with Figures and called the election "a moral moment." He urged voters not to let their political power be taken away. On the Republican side, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise called Figures' district one of about three dozen seats that will decide which party controls Congress. Both parties clearly see this race as very important.

Figures has made the cost of living a big part of his message to voters. He often points out that the average person in Alabama earns about $34,000 a year and that many people struggle to afford groceries, gas, and health care. Many parts of the state also lack easy access to hospitals. He frames the choice for voters simply: pick someone with a record of helping regular people, or pick someone focused on pleasing the president.

One weekend in October, Figures showed just how wide his campaign is reaching. He greeted visitors at the Boll Weevil Fall Festival in Enterprise, a mostly white city of about 31,000 people, and the next day he visited several Black churches in Dothan to urge people to vote. Figures often reminds voters that his district was never designed to be majority Black — it was meant to be roughly half Black and half white. Even with the new lines, he says, voters still have the power to show up and be heard.